BRUNSWICK — Power plays were plentiful when Poland/Leavitt/Oak Hill/Gray-New Gloucester kicked off the Class B South boys hockey season against Mt. Ararat/Lisbon/Morse on Saturday.
Goals on any of the eight man-advantages failed to follow, however.
The visiting Kings were at least able to produce one goal in the game, and that was enough for a 1-0 victory at Watson Arena.
The Kings (1-0) went on their first man-advantage 29 seconds into the game, but three shots on goal were all turned away by Eagles (0-1) goalie Sean Moore. So were two more on a five-minute Kings power play that started just over four minutes in.
“Undisciplined,” Eagles coach A.J. Kavanaugh said. “Happy with the effort. For early in the season execution is not going to be there, but our effort was there right from the get-go, almost too into the game, too hyped up, and we got caught in a few penalty situations.”
Moore was helpless when the Kings scored the opening goal during rare 5-on-5 play with 2:40 left in the first. Spencer Berube converted on a counter rush, picking a low spot through Moore off assists from Reese Collins and Sam Tibbetts.
“It was a great move, made him open up and get the five-hole,” Kings coach Joe Hutchinson said. “And it was a nice pass by Reese. That was an all-around good play.”
The Kings went on a third power play before the first period was through, but that was stopped short when Blake Springer was called for a high-sticking penalty.
That gave the Eagles their first power play — albeit a brief one of just over 30 seconds — after the second period started with 4-on-4 play. The hosts couldn’t get a shot on Kings goalie Vinny Lupardo with the man-advantage.
The teams traded power plays during the middle moments of the period, the Kings putting one shot on Moore, then Hunter Merryman twice shooting on-target for the Eagles.
The Kings ended the second period on their best-looking power play of the first 30 minutes, but Moore stopped five shots in the first 1:28 of his team’s penalty kill.
“I was happy with the last two (power plays),” Hutchinson said. “We finally started to move the puck, and we started to move as well. So once we started creating movement then we started creating some open lanes. At the beginning we were too stagnant and we weren’t making the puck move.”
That man-advantage momentum didn’t carry over into the third period, with the Kings failing to get an offensive rush started in the final 32 seconds of the power play.
The Eagles went on the final man-advantage of the game with just over 11 minutes to play, but Lupardo stopped a pair of shots, including Merryman’s quality look off the initial faceoff. Moore stopped Berube on a shorthanded shot.
Moore’s best save of the game — “Save of the year candidate,” according to Kavanaugh — came with just over seven minutes left to keep it a 1-0 game.
“He came out to play the puck, and it deflected, and diving back to make that save,” Kavanaugh said. “He knows we’re going to have to depend on him all year like that, and he showed right in the first game he’s going to be there for us.”
Moore stopped 25 of 26 shots in the game.
Lupardo didn’t have nearly as much work (13 shots against), but like Moore he had to make six saves in the third period.
“He didn’t have a lot of shots, so to end up having some tough shots that he had to turn away, it was nice to see,” Hutchinson said.
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