AUBURN — It’s not how you start, but how you finish. Edward Little finished off Gardiner when Eli Thibodeau scored in overtime to give the Red Eddies a 2-1 boys’ hockey victory at the Norway Savings Bank Arena.
Thibodeau scored both of the Eddies’ goals.
EL coach Norm Gagne thought his team overlooked Gardiner, which has only one win this season, for the first two periods of Wednesday’s game.
“When you play a team with less talent than you, you think it’s going to be a cake walk,” Gagne said. “You forget that they want to win, too, and they aren’t going to lay down for you. I said that before the game, I coached there, I know the kids there, I know they are gritty and they come after you.”
Thibodeau and his teammates took Gagne’s message during the intermissions to heart.
“We had to come out and not let them win the second and third periods,” Thibodeau said. “I think we did well, we didn’t let them score. We just worked hard the rest of the game, and it showed.”
Ben Cassidy fired a shot on Gardiner goalie Quinn Verrege inside the left circle, and the rebound was kicked out into the slot where Thibodeau came crashing down from the right wing and shot into a half-open cage to tie the game at 1-1 only 57 seconds into the third period.
“Well, in practice we practice shoot for rebounds and getting there (to the net),” Thibodeau said. “I knew that was a possibility that I could capitalize on.”
The Red Eddies (7-4-0) controlled the third period, firing 15 shots on Verrege. The Gardiner goalie made a couple of big saves at the end of the period while his team was on the penalty kill for the final 1:55 of regulation.
Gardiner (1-7-0) had a power play of its own in the overtime session but wasn’t able to get a puck past Edward Little goalie Noah Toussaint for a second time in the evening.
Toussaint made nine saves in the victory, while Verrege stopped 30 shots in the losing effort.
Cassidy found Thibodeau again on a 2-on-1 when the pair skated into the offensive zone following a Gardiner chance. This time, Cassidy slid the puck to Thibodeau, who snapped the puck home with 46 seconds remaining in the overtime.
“He knows where it goes,” Gagne said. “That was the key. I am really proud of both of those guys that they were going to make they play. And that’s what you need to do in those situations.”
The Red Eddies controlled the play majority of the first period, outshooting Gardiner 8-2.
It was the Tigers who pounced on EL’s first mistake of the game. Ryan Begin was called for elbowing with 3:14 remaining in the period. The Tigers scored 26 seconds later when Parker Smith and Sean Michaud moved the puck to Jake Weston in the slot. He received a pass right on the tape and redirected it into the half-open net.
“Their goalie played well,” Gagne said. “I think at times during that period when we were 5-on-5 we were trying to (play) individual hockey. We weren’t looking to make a pass, we were just looking to shoot the puck and hope. Shoot and hope, I like to call it.”
Gardiner went back on the power play when Dylan Campbell was called for a five-minute major for hitting from behind. The penalty extended into the second period, but the Tigers couldn’t convert.
Gardiner was 1-for-5 with the man advantage while EL was 0-for-2 on the power play.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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