Scarborough’s Ethan Jasa skids out on the ice while handling the puck as Edward Little’s Kegan Rodrigue watches the play from the right during Wednesday night’s hockey game in Auburn. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn)
AUBURN — Facing five minutes of penalty-kill time across two periods, Scarborough needed a little extra something to survive the extended man-down.
So goalie Caleb Sellinger manned up.
The Red Storm’s junior goalie, in his first start of the young season, made six saves during the five-minute kill, and finished the game by stopping all 30 shots he faced in Scarborough’s 3-0 victory over Edward Little in a Class A boys’ hockey game at Norway Savings Bank Arena on Wednesday.
“It was huge,” Scarborough coach Jake Brown said. “He did a good job controlling his rebounds. You got to get whistles, you know, when you got to kill a major.”
The Red Storm (1-1) were up 1-0 when Patrick Clonan was issued a major for hitting from behind with 2:28 left in the first period. Sellinger made two saves before the first intermission, then four more out of the gate in the second, including stopping EL’s Ben Lane-Robichaud at the back door with 16 seconds left in the kill.
“If their goalie didn’t have the night he had, it would have been a different (outcome),” EL coach Norm Gagne said. “I mean, we outshot them, we were all over them.”
Scarborough fed off the successful penalty kill, and 18 seconds after Clonan exited the box the Red Storm scored again. Gavin Toussaint stopped Ethan Jasa’s initial shot, but had no chance when Jacob Brown grabbed the rebound and fired it into a wide-open net.
The Red Eddies (3-1) put four more shots on Sellinger during another power play later in the second, but the man-advantage was cut eight seconds short when EL was called for its only penalty of the game. Going from a man-up to a man-down, the Red Eddies still had an opportunity to get back in the game, but Lane-Robichaud rang the post with a shorthanded shot.
“I thought in the second period, when Ben (Lane-Robichaud) got that break on the penalty kill, if we could have got that goal, that could have given us — we needed a spark, a real spark,” Gagne said.
“I thought that the effort in the second and third was there, but we just we were always on our heels from the get-go, and it’s so hard to get that momentum back. And when we did have it back we couldn’t get the goal to really light the fire,” Gagne added. “And that’s what it takes, it takes that opportunity — like Ben Lane’s opportunity, or even Cam Sturgis, he was in the slot, and he got a quick shot off on a turnover from them, and we hit the post.
“We hit the post, hit the post, and it was one of those nights where it just didn’t go for, didn’t go our way.”
Gagne tried all kinds of things to turn the tide in favor of his team, even taking out Toussaint in favor of Devon D’Auteuil to start the third period.
“We let Gavin down with stupid turnovers, and I just felt that, you know, maybe a change would spark us,” Gagne said.
Toussaint stopped 14 of 16 shots he faced, while D’Auteuil stopped the first two he saw before Cameron Budway beat him to round out the scoring with 3:33 left.
Budway pounced on an EL pass at the Red Eddies’ blue line and skated in on an all-alone D’Auteuil.
“You know, we talked about that, that that next goal was going to be huge, and it’s going to be a momentum-taker. And I thought we did a good job, again having layers in the neutral zone, and getting good sticks, and that was just a good, you know, Budway did a great job reading that pass,” Brown said. “He can shoot the puck, and that’s a guy you want on that situation.”
Jack Matthews scored the opening goal for Scarborough after collecting the rebound of Zachary Chaisson’s post-ringing shot less than six minutes into the game.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
Edward Little’s Ben Cassidy keeps his eye on the goal as he takes his shot while Scarborough’s Jack Matthews tries to interfere with the play during Wednesday night’s hockey game in Auburn. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn)
Edward Little’s Ben Lane-Robichaud takes the puck down the ice with Scarborough’s Jacob Brown right behind him during Wednesday night’s hockey game in Auburn. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn)
Scarborough’s Cameron Budway and Edward Little’s Kegan Rodrigue scramble to catch up to the puck during Wednesday night’s hockey game in Auburn. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn)
Edward Little’s Gunnar Winslow and Scarborough’s Ethan Jasa struggle for control of the puck behind Scarborough’s goal during Wednesday night’s hockey game in Auburn. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn)
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