There was a general feeling of pride on both sides of Monday night’s 2-2 tie between West Seneca East and Niagara Falls. In the two teams’ first meeting of the season on November 30, Niagara Falls came away with a 6-5 win.
Although West Seneca East coach Phil Prynn thought his team should have won that game, Monday’s game had him smiling at the defensive improvement and perseverance of his young team.
“I didn’t know how I was gonna feel at the end,” Prynn said. “But at the end of overtime I found myself smirking walking off the bench like, ‘Okay, we got out of that one,’ and I’m happy with the result, to be honest with you.”
Outside the home team’s locker room, Niagara Falls coach Stan Wojton was proud of the way his injury- and sickness-ridden team battled as well and gave its full effort.
“I’m proud of our team because we got hit with the injury bug, we got hit with the sick bug, and I’m proud of our team that they battled the way that they did,” Wojton said. “We were down to seven forwards, 5 D there for a while, and we had a group of young men that really dug deep and worked hard. Obviously we want to win, but I’m proud of them. I’m proud of the way that they fought.”
Niagara Falls took the first lead of the game when Nick Lepine scored with 1:24 left in the first period. Alex Hailey and Nick Kindzia assisted the goal.
But it was less than a minute into the second period when Dominic Khoury scored to tie the game, and less than two minutes later, Danny Flynn gave West Seneca East a 2-1 lead. The Trojans held the lead until just past the halfway mark of the second, when Lepine’s second goal of the game tied the score at two.
There were no goals scored in the third, but what happened exactly three minutes into the period affected the rest of the game almost as much as a goal could have. Niagara Falls’ Kindzia and WSE’s Khoury, along with captain Ryan Krzykowski, each received a game misconduct for fighting. Both teams lost at least one potential goal scorer, and the Trojans were also without the leadership of two of their most experienced players.
But both the Wolverines and Trojans took the adversity in stride, and both coaches were happy with the way their teams responded.
“Losing two of our top guys, maybe that was a third goal somewhere on the ice,” Prynn said. “But a lot of sophomores and a couple freshmen played big minutes in the third period and overtime for us, so from a coaching standpoint, there was a lot of teachable moments out there, a lot of good experience points gained by having those young guys get those big minutes at the end of the game, so from that perspective I’m totally happy with it. Sometimes you could be frustrated after a tie game, but in this case, real happy with how the game turned out for our guys, getting those minutes and experience against some guys that set scoring records last year.”
“What I was proud of was that we have some young men that together as a team, when we had low moments in the bench, guys spoke up,” Wojton said. “Guys showed leadership, and it was something that we’ve worked on as a team, and it was nice to see them grow and develop that today. I could tell that they had that good feeling in the locker room before the game, and the team really came together, and I was just proud of their effort.”
The Trojans took a major penalty just 1:15 into the overtime period and spent the rest of the game trying to kill it. Young players who wouldn’t normally have gotten much playing time ended up stuck on the ice as they successfully killed the penalty despite failing to clear the puck.
“You want to win in overtime, but then you find yourself shorthanded and pinned in your zone,” Prynn said. “You have the same guys on the ice for four minutes, they couldn’t get off, they couldn’t ice the puck, they couldn’t get it out, but they were composed enough to remember their assignments. During the timeout we called, I was able to reinforce what their assignments were gonna be, and they stuck with their man, they stuck with the guys that they were supposed to cover out there and the areas they were supposed to be in, and I think they only got one shot. I was real pleased with that because those guys weren’t supposed to be out there for that long, but they were able to still execute their game plan against good players, so that’s a tie you’re kind of happy with at the end.”
Prynn’s hope for his young team this year is that it improves with each game, and a 2-2 tie is technically an improvement over a 6-5 overtime loss.
“This time it’s a tie, so it actually is documented improvement,” Prynn said. “So that’s what we’re all about, getting better each game.”