BRIGHTON — Hartland’s 3-1 hockey victory over Brighton in Saturday’s championship game of the Kensington Valley Thanksgiving Invitational was a tribute to both its defense and its penalty-killing unit.
And the Eagles had plenty of opportunities, including killing a Brighton 5-on-3 advantage over the first four minutes of the second period and three more penalties later on.
“I told my coaches we are not going to practice the penalty kill next week, because we overdid it today,” Hartland coach Rick Gadwa said. “We have to clean up our game, still, we can’t take so many paenalties, but the positive thing is, we killed a ton, and those are good things.”
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As it turned out, the Eagles scored what turned out to be the game winning goal 11 seconds after killing off that long Brighton power play in the second period on Ben Pouliot’s second goal of the game.
Hartland (4-1) was also bolstered by solid goaltending by Kameron Ragon, who allowed just one goal in two games, a one-timer off a face-off scored by Mattix McMullen late in the second.
“They were talking to me a lot,” Ragon said of his teammates. “They were letting me know where players were and they were eating every puck they could and making smart plays.”
Auston Trombley put the game out of reach with a goal late in the third period.
Brighton coach Kurt Kivisto, while expecting better from his team, was sanguine about his team’s power play.
“It’s something we haven’t practiced much lately,” he said of his team, which fell to 2-2. “We’ve spent a little bit of time on it, but it’s so early in the year, and we haven’t practiced it much, and it showed today.
“A lot of it was movement and being sharp and on time,” Kivisto continued. “You want to create some movement with the players and the puck to spaces, and we held onto it a little too long and forced some shots when (Hartland players) were in shooting lanes. So, moving the puck a little quicker and then drawing the Hartland guys away from space, then moving it to that open space and creating shots that way.”
The game was a tight defensive struggle, the kind one has come to expect between the teams.
“It was a good game, despite the penalties,” Gadwa said. “There was a good pace, and there was the Brighton-Hartland thing. i think it’s great to see these programs go head-to-head like that. A great battle.”
The teams meet again in January in a KLAA contest.
“We’re going to be playing until March,” Kivisto said. “This was our fourth game of the year and there’s 21 more before playoffs. It’s a long season, but it goes by quick. It’s good to play an opponent like this early in the year. We’ll have the opportunity to see them again, and I know we’ll be a better team then.”
Rockford won the tournament’s consolation game earlier in the day, edging Byron Center by a 2-1 score.
