CALUMET — One worry down for the Brighton hockey team, and another pops up.
But, while goals off a pair of turnovers made the game closer than Brighton coach Paul Moggach would have liked, his team came home Sunday having swept the weekend’s games in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
The Bulldogs held off Calumet, 5-4, getting a pair of goals from Drew Daavettila and a sterling performance from goalie Robert Pegrum, especially in the final minute, when the Copper Kings pulled their goalie for a sixth skater and swarmed the net like a half-dozen angry bees.
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“It’s always exceptional when you get two (wins) out of here,” Moggach said. “It’s hard to play here, with the travel and everything, and we’re always happy to get out of here with a win on the second night.”
The Bulldogs (8-3-1) never trailed in the contest. Daavettila scored 1:49 into the contest with a bad-angle shot that bounced off Calumet goalie Nick Voelker into the goal. Brighton took a 2-0 lead a couple of minutes later when Adam Conquest split two Calumet defenders for a goal.
Tanner Rowe got the Copper Kings back in range with a goal midway through the first, and Brent Loukus tied it early in the second.
Caleb Seiter gave the Bulldogs the lead for good at the 12:54 mark, and Mathew Kahra scored a little over a minute and a half later to give Brighton a 4-2 lead.
“When we went up 4-2, I think that was big,” Moggach said. “It gave us that breather. They never quit. Calumet teams never, every quit. You never get them in a situation where they’re not going to come back a little bit, and they did.”
Loukus scored an unassisted goal off a Brighton turnover to make it 4-3 after two.
Daavettila provided the deciding goal midway through the third and Loukus completed a hat trick two minutes later, but the Bulldogs held on, despite Calumet’s frenzied attack with six skaters in the final minute.
Brighton had gone north having scored once in three games, which meant 10 goals in two games was a welcome relief to a scoring drought.
“That’s a big lift for us,” Moggach said. “I think we’re executign better, we’re getting pucks to the net and we’re not missing the net as much.
“One of the things we have to be is better defensively,” he added. “We can’t give up four goals like we did today. We have to take out the turnovers and there are some things we have to execute better in a lot of ways. We had a tough time getting the puck out at times, but we did a better job tonight.”
