The team’s goals-against average wasn’t stellar, on the whole: St. Dom’s averaged just fewer than three goals per game allowed this season.

But when you score nearly six per game on the other end, it doesn’t much matter.

Speed was the Saints’ biggest asset this season, with several small, dart-like forwards to wreak havoc on the rest of Class A.

And they did that all season.

“We knew going in we had some great seniors with a lot of skill up front,” St. Dom’s co-captain and Travis Roy Award winner Richard Paradis said.

Paradis started rattling off names: C.J. Bergeron, Spencer Teixeira, Casey Parker, Ben Randall.

There were more, of course: Alex Parker, Spencer Martin, Trevar Haefele. The list went on. Depth up front, it appeared, would not be an issue.

On the blue line, Paradis joined transfer Joe Klemanski and greener d-men in Cam Brown, Dylan Rodrigue and Donne Laravee.

In net, Shayne Curtis began the year as the team’s lone question mark. Early, perhaps it was nerves, or a lack of confidence. he struggled, and those games the team scored six or seven goals, those were necessary.

But in the playoffs, Curtis came into his own. To get to the state final, he allowed just eight goals in three games, including a one-goal effort in the Western Class A final.

The Saints survived a ruthless Western Class A schedule to earn the last non-preliminary-round playoff position at No. 4, and faced Scarborough, Biddeford and Falmouth.

“It give kind of a sense of satisfaction, when you look back at the teams we had to beat to get where we did,” Paradis said.

And even though the team lost in the state final, Paradis said, the season met – and exceeded – expectations.

“I knew we’d be solid, but we got so much further than we though we would, honestly,” Paradis said.

For their tenacity and solid play all season long, the St. Dom’s Saints are this year’s Sun Journal Boys’ Hockey Team of the Year.