PORTLAND — For a team saddled with an inability to dig out of holes this season, the Edward Little Red Eddies did a fine job of that Thursday night against Portland High School at Portland Ice Arena.
In fact, they overcame a pair of two-goal deficits.
The third time, though, the comeback proved to be much more difficult.
Joe Quatrucci scored his second goal of the game to back up teammate Sam Guimond’s hat trick, with just 2:47 to play in regulation as the Bulldogs edged the Eddies 5-4.
“It wasn’t your typical power play setup,” said Portland coach Paul Evans, “but it worked well enough. We let up a couple of times with two-goal leads and then made some costly turnovers and some coverage mistakes, but once we got back on track and focused, we played well.”
Guimond and Quatrucci were thorns in the Eddies’ side all night, accounting for all five Portland tallies.
“(Guimond) was hurt a little bit in the second period,” said Evans, “but
On the bright side for Edward Little, the team managed to stay out of the box for most of the night. unfortunately for EL, the third Portland power play all night provided the Bulldogs with its chance to win.
Cam Robichaud had two goals and an assist for the Eddies, and Shawn Hird had a key goal in the third to start the team’s second comeback bid.
“We should have been watching Cam Robichaud a little more closely, and I though we did a good job of doing that for a while, but he still managed a couple of good chances,” said Evans.
Portland put the Eddies in that early hole with two quick goals, one from Guimond and the other from Joe Quatrucci just 5:03 into the game, but Edward Little responded even more quickly.
Cam Robichaud cut across the center of the slot and dropped the puck to Jacob Marcum. Marcum fired a low snap shot that beat Ray Quatrucci on the ice short side to pull EL within one just 23 seconds after Portland’s second tally.
Robichaud scored his own goal, this time on the power play, 1:50 later when he knifed through the Portland defense and lifted a backhander against the grain over Ray Quatrucci’s glove side shoulder to knot the score.
The Bulldogs pulled away in the second period with two more from Guimond to secure the hat trick. The first came less than a minute into the middle frame on a feed from Scott Korobkin at center. Guimond found a seam in the defense up the middle and put his shot over Adam Loudermilk’s blocker for the 3-2 Portland lead.
Guimond’s third goal was opportunistic. He stole the puck after a face-off in the Eddies’ zone and deked to the short side on the Edward Little netminder, stuffing home the puck to again put Portland ahead by two.
Ray Quatrucci played well in the second and third periods, while Edward Little enjoyed several chances with a man advantage and a brief 5-on-3. He finished with 16 saves in the win. Loudermilk stopped 19 of 24.
Edward Little coach Craig Latuscha was unavailable for comment following the game.
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