Nashua South-Pelham's Cam Cooke (18), Ryan Arnesen (13) and goalie Riley Pelletier have that helpless feeling as they watch the puck roll into the net aftera shot by North-Souhegan's Chase McBride (7) during Wednesday night's Battle of the Bridge game at Conway Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Chase McBride had Wednesday night’s Battle of the Bridge game vs. the Nashua High School South-Pelham Kings on his radar for months.

“I’m not going to lie, I was excited from the start of the season, I really wanted to play these guys right away,” McBride said after his hat trick carried the Saber-Titans to a 4-1 win at a packed Conway Arena. “They’re a talented team, they’re good, we have to show our A-game every single period, every single shift. We knew it was going to be a battle coming in here.”

It was and it wasn’t. The Saber-Titans and their power play produced two first-period goals by McBride and the Kings couldn’t really get back into it. It was 4-0 after two periods and basically over.

The main difference between the two teams? It’s the offense generated by the Sabers top line of McBride, Jacob Landry and Callen Cullity. McBride and Landry have an obvious connection on the ice, and Cullity is no slouch. The Kings were outshot 25-7 and that’s not going to be enough.

“North has some real firepower on offense,” Kings coach Jordan Sarracco, his team falling to 1-4 in Division I and needing to turn things around soon. “We came out a little flat, I think. They came out hungry, skated hard from the first puck drop.”

“We don’t even play travel (league) or anything together,” McBride said. “It’s just we play for each other and trust each other completely. I’ll hear (Landry) coming down the ice and I’ll throw it to the middle because I know he’ll get it. “He’s a talented player, I’d like to say I’m decently talented, just together, we work together. Honestly it’s perfect, I would say. … Any goal we get on the ice, that’s full line work.”

“That first line just skates around people,” said North-Souhegan coach Chris Zarlenga, while giving credit to the other two lines as well. “It’s that conditioning we always talk about as a team, and just not getting beaten to the puck.”

McBride’s tenacity pushed the puck over the line at 8:08 of the first period for a 1-0 lead, the Saber-Titans (2-2) on the power play. Then you knew it was going to be an N-S night just over a minute later when, with 14 seconds left on another power play, McBride caught the Kings and goalie Riley Pelletier napping when he had a deflected puck and flipped it into the net when no one seemd to know what was happening.

“It just bounced out right too me, and everybody was looking the other way,” McBride said. “Call it luck, but to get lucky you’ve got to be in the right spot, I think.”

His third goal was really unexpected. Landry had broken in on Pelletier but went crashing to the ice, pushing the puck toward the goalie. McBride was right there for the tap-in with bodies all over the ice and 3-0 North-Souhegan lead at 7:37 of the second.

“Two of those goals, I don’t know what happened,” Sarracco said. “You know, that’s also part of it. Sometimes you take the luck when you can get it. That’s part of hockey.”

Landry, who had two assists, finished the scoring on a feed from Cullity at 13:19 of the second to make it 4-0. South-Pelham, who played Noah Soule in goal in the third (five saves) avoided the shutout when Brendon Doughty wristed one past N-S goalie Zach Veilleux at 1:55 of the third, unassisted. But that was it, and the Kings know they’ll need to generate more offense when the teams meet again on Feb. 19, especially on the power play when they went 0 for 6 last night.

“We’re getting a lot of possession on the power play,” Sarracco said. “We’re keeping the puck in the zone, keeping (the defense) pinned. We need more shots. We need more shots that hit the net.

“We hit some posts, we hit some crossbars, we had a lot of opportuniteis that didn’t go our way. That’s what cost us the game.”

That and a kid named McBride and his merry band.