HATFIELD— It was not a flashy performance. But it was a very efficient one to be sure. Five different players scored goals as North Penn got the better of Central Bucks West 5-1 Thursday night in a Suburban High School Hockey League Class AA game on the Blue Rink at Hatfield Ice.
The Knights (7-2 overall) stayed a perfect 6-0 in divisional play. The Bucks dropped to 6-3-2-1 overall and 3-3–2-0 in the division. They are ranked fourth in this week’s Flyers Cup Class AA power rankings.
The two teams skated on even terms through most of the first period with the Knights’ Ryan Cunningham scoring the only goal at 4:53 when he launched a wrister from in between the two circles and beat Bucks’ goaltender Jake Coddington along the ice inside the right post. Zachary Cline added a goal 5:03 into the second session just as a West penalty was about got expire. It was the Knights’ only power play of the game (there were just three penalties called).
Tyler Greenstein added a goal at 11:04 while the Knights had their goaltender out in anticipation of a delayed penalty and Quinn Holt scored with 47 seconds left in the period to stretch North Penn’s lead to 4-0.
“We haven’t played in two weeks,” said North Penn coach Kevin Vaitis. “We came out a little slow I think to start, but then we kind of got things going a little bit there in the second period.
“We had some opportunities there on the power play and one on the delayed penalty, Our power play is the key for us this year.”
Greenstein’s goal was his only point of the evening but the senior’s abilities at reading the play and creating opportunities for teammates were as impactful as ever. “We were a little bit rusty coming out,” he said. “The game plan was to get pucks deep and try to cycle and get quality shots on net just to try to get the flow back.”
Greenstein noted that moving the puck well is critical to the Knights’ success. “We lost all bunch of seniors (to graduation),” he said, “some offensive threats up top. So this year I’ve tried to be more of a playmaker.”
To their credit the Bucks, who are winless in their last five games, didn’t back off and made North Penn goaltender Nick Ebbinghaus earn his 24 saves. Jake Lang finally got his team on the scoreboard at 12:11 of the third period. That was all that West could muster but coach Dave Baun was pleased with what his young team gave him.
“I’m very proud of them,” he said. “I’m very encouraged by the way they played. North Penn is a fast team, they’ve got a lot of skill.
“We focused on making sure we stacked our (defense), we covered the middle lane much better and we didn’t give up chances on the transition.”
North Penn 1 3 1—5
C.B. West 0 0 1—1
First-period goals: Ryan Cunningham (NP), 4:53
Second-period goals: Zachary Cline (NP) from Jeremy Porubski, 5:01 (pp); Tyler Greenstein (NP) from Tony Tuozzo and. Porubski 11:04; Quinn Holt (NP) unassisted, 15:13.
Third-period goals: Jake Lang (CBW) from Chris Trefz and Billy Loughnane, 12:11; Josh Kaufhold (NP) from Tuozzo, 13:44.
Shots: North Penn 32, C.B. West 25; Saves; Nick Ebbinghaus (NP) 24, Jake Coddington (CBW) 27
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