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Dodge comes through in OT as North-Souhegan edges Goffstown

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Feb 23, 2021

Nashua North-Souhegan's Will Dodge (9) celebrates his game winning goal in OT, along with teammate Chris Weeden (background), much to the dismay of Goffstown's Jackson Burke (21) in overtime Monday at Conway Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The Nashua High School North-Souhegan hockey team had two things in mind going into sudden death overtime vs. Goffstown Monday at Conway Arena.

“The whole idea was we don’t want (the puck) coming out of their zone, and we don’t want it going more than two minutes,” North-Souhegan assistant coach C.J. Sweet said.

Will Dodge and his Saber-Titan teammates went 2 for 2. Dodge flipped home the puck just 1:34 into the extra session to give the locals a 3-2 win over the Division II Grizzlies to improve to 4-2.

They did it without their first-year coach, Bill Kotsifas. He confirmed last night that he is serving a four-game suspension for being tossed by the refs late in Saturday night’s 9-3 win over Manchester Central-West.

Kotsifas gets an automatic two-game NHIAA suspension, but Nashua athletic department policy is any such suspension to coach or player is doubled on its part. Kotsifas will miss the rest of the regular season and one tournament game, but he will be able to run practices the whole time.

He watched on the live stream when Dodge fired the puck home for his second goal of the day, assisted by Ryan Catalano and Chris Weeden, Weeden flipping the puck out while serving as a screen in front of Goffstown goalie Madeline Sage (26 stops).

“Will played will today,” Sweet said.

“He missed a couple of games (with a non-COVID illness), and he’s really starting to find his stride.

“But I think the biggest thing is between the third period and overtime the coaches told them we weren’t playing hard. Just playing up to whatever level they brought to us. It was good seeing them work with much more efficiency.”

They’ve been doing that lately, with four wins in their last five games of this brief six-game season that has them at Manchester Memorial on Thursday and finishing up at home Saturday vs. Bishop Brady.

“We were flat-footed,” Goffstown coach Ben Slocum said, his team now 3-7. “We let them stand in front of the crease and whack at it, I don’t know, eight or nine times. Our D just couldn’t clear them out.”

Dodge gave N-S a 1-0 lead with the first period’s only goal, assisted by Peter Lennox, who gave the Titans a 2-1 lead (assisted by Mike Dodge) on a power play goal in the final 20 seconds of the second period.

The only thing the Saber-Titans couldn’t do is contain Goffstown’s dynamic Grady Chretien, who scored two unassisted game-tying goals – career Nos. 98 and 99 –, the second coming on a shorthanded breakaway at 9:04 of the third to send things into OT. N-S goalie Colin Duckless had 22 stops.

“We didn’t press the issue enough,” Sweet said. “We just thought we’d hang on for a 2-1 win, and they’ve got that great scorer (Chretien). We knew that coming in.

“But it was a good effort all the way through. The guys did a good job, especially on the penalty kill and the power play.”

Which is what you want with the tournament a week away.

“We’ll see how much stamina we have,” Sweet said. “You work hard in the preseason, this is when it all comes back.”

They’ve got their overtime strategy down, that’s for sure.

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