Telegraph photo by TOM KING Bishop Guertin's Max Trawick checks Pinkerton's Scott Cavan against the boards during the Cardinals' 2-1 overtime win Wednesday at Skate 3.

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. – Gary Bishop doesn’t mind if his team climbs on the back of senior forward Patrick Madden whenever there’s a time of need.

In fact, the Bishop Guertin High School boys hockey coach is starting to expect it.

Madden came up big again for the Cards with his overtime game-winning goal Wednesday to give BG a much-needed 2-1 win over Pinkerton at Skate 3 Arena, snapping a two-game losing streak.

“He’s the guy who can put the puck in the net,” Bishop said of Madden, who raced down left win and flipped the puck off and over Astros goalie Mike Gilliland at 1:14 of overtime. “He can take that shot and get it to go in. Someone else can’t. He’s our goal scorer. He’s been playing hurt, but now he’s getting back and I think we’re going to get a lot more out of him the rest of the way.”

Guertin is now 9-4, and had come in having lost three of four and saw its scoreless streak stretch to five-plus periods. The Astros (7-6) broke a scoreless tie on an Ethan Burgess blast from the right wing just 32 seconds into the third period, but Guertin ended its drought 49 seconds later when Max Trawick hit the puck past an out-of position Gilliland (29 stops) to make it 1-1. Mike Kiely and Sean Kelley got the assists.

“It was the little things this game,” Pinkerton coach Sam Littlefield, whose team came up empty on three power plays, said. “It was back and forth, but it just came down to one little thing.”

Guertin is fighting to get a top four finish , which means home ice for the quarterfinals, something it hasn’t had in a while.

“These top eight teams can play with anybody,” Bishop said. “We’ve got Bedford coming up (next Wednesday), we’ve got Concord coming up, we haven’t played Salem yet. We don’t have an easy road. This was a huge game for us.”

Evan Butler came up with 25 stops, and was also helped out on one by the iron. In the overtime, Ben Young chipped the puck into the neutral zone and Madden zipped down the left side. Gilliland made the stop, but the puck deflected up and over him into the net.

“The kids worked hard, skated hard all game long,” Bishop said. “Going into the third, we said, ‘Stop trying to beat (Gilliland), just shoot five-hole, go in for the rebounds. He’s a big kid, we had to get him off his angles, and that’s kind of what we did at the end.”

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