AUBURN — Michael Moscone played the role of hero for the Rams.
The Bangor senior scored 4:11 into overtime for a 1-0 Class A boys hockey victory over St. Dom’s at Norway Savings Bank Arena on Saturday. Ty Walker and Jackson Guimond had the assists.
“I saw my linemate Ty Walker come around the net, we locked eyes and I slipped into that backdoor space,” Moscone said. “He made a beautiful pass back door and I just had the easy job of putting it away.”
St. Dom’s coach Dan D’Auteuil said he told his players to keep watching for that specific play.
“The message was we have to keep our focus for the whole game,” D’Auteuil said. “They beat us on a backdoor play they were running the whole game. We kept telling them the whole game, ‘They are doing it, they are doing it.’ We got puck-focused and kept looking one way and they beat us. It is what it is.”
Bangor coach Quinn Paradis said the Rams made a little adjustment on the play in overtime.
“We had been working on it all game and they clogged the middle so well and took that backdoor play away,” Paradis said. “We made a little line adjustment and the seam opened up and Moscone put the puck in.”
Moscone said he enjoys games that are back-and-forth battles.
“It’s amazing, it’s my favorite game when it’s neck-and-neck like that,” Moscone said. “Our goalie, he bailed us out at the end there and their goalie definitely bailed them out huge on (our) power plays a couple of times. Yeah, it was awesome.”
Cody McCue made 16 saves for the shutout and Jayden Lynn had 25 stops in the loss.
“It was a good, hard-fought battle,” McCue said. “Defense played really well in front of me. I was fortunate to whack that last one out of there. I couldn’t have done it without the defense and the backcheckers.”
Both teams had chances to win the game in the third period.
Brody Walling had the Saints’ first grade-A scoring chance early in the third period when Ethan Pelletier fed him in the slot. Walling had a half-open net, but his shot went wide.
“Like we told them, ‘If that’s a left-handed shot, that’s a goal,'” D’Auteuil said. “He was on his offhand and he was just off a little bit.”
The Saints (6-2) killed off a penalty with under four minutes left. Shortly after the penalty, Bangor (6-1) had a chance when Miles Randall grabbed the puck in the slot, but the St. Dom’s defenders knocked the puck out of harm’s way before Randall could get a shot off.
“The first five minutes of the third period, they outplayed us,” Paradis said. “Which kind of concerned us, but the last ten minutes were pretty even and we called a timeout. We had a lot of good flurries at the end — I was hoping to get one before overtime.”
McCue stopped Ben Dumais point-blank in the final minute.
“I squared up to it and I think Jackson (Guimond) was back to it and I was able to get it off his stick and dive for it to get it out of the area,” McCue said.
Bangor controlled the play for most of the first period, peppering Lynn nine times in the frame.
The Saints struggled to get out of their end but did manage to get four shots on McCue.
“That’s what we are trying to do is keep the shot attempt down, which we did,” Paradis said. “…Their goaltender made some big saves, and I don’t know how we didn’t score on the power play in the second period, we missed twice. That would have been a big difference-maker if we scored in the second. Overall, great game both ways tonight.”
St. Dom’s came out firing in the middle frame with four quick shots on McCue, who made one particularly nice stick save with traffic right in front of him.
“I was trying to get a whistle, trying to get a restart,” McCue said of that opportunity.
D’Auteuil said the Saints had their moments.
“We had some spurts,” D’Auteuil said. “We played in spurts and got some chances. We could have had two or three goals. We couldn’t get that last step to the net to get a good shot.”
Lynn made two big saves in the second when he stopped Randall point-blank on a power play. In the final few minutes of the stanza, he made a cross-crease save to keep the game scoreless.
“He was the reason why we were in that game the whole time,” D’Auteuil said of Lynn. “That’s probably the best game I have seen him play in his career. He kept us in it.”
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