Manchester's Cam Provencher gets ready to shoot on Nashua South-Pelham goalie Noah Soule during Saturday's Division I clash at Conway Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It was an on-ice battle of two royal families, and there’s no secret why the Manchester Kings ruled the day Saturday over the Nashua High School South-Pelham boys hockey team.

Manchester owned the second period, dominating puck possession en route to opening up a 3-0 lead over the local Kings en route to a 5-2 win at Conway Arena.

“We didn’t come out and play our game in the second,” South-Pelham coach Jordan Sarracco said, “and paid the price for it.

“Right now, we are a team that doesn’t have our identity, is the best way I can put it. We’re still trying to find that.”

Actually, South-Pelham (0-4) played a decent first period, outshooting Manchester, but when Ryan Marden scored with just 55 seconds left before the break, giving the visitors a 1-0 lead. As Sarracco said, “That took the wind out of our sails.”

And then it was the visiting Kings who were sailing – actually skating – as they got second period goals from Frank Tessier, who shot the puck and then got his own rebound and had time to fire away at 7:22, and Andrue McLaughlin, who scored at 14:34 to make it a 3-0 game. But it had to feel like 6-0 for South-Pelham.

“I had a little speech at the end of the first period, I wasn’t happy with the way we were looking,” Manchester coach Jeremy Baker said, his team now 2-3. “We weren’t forechecking the way we can…They came out with a better effort. There’s a difference between skating, and then skating like your hair’s on fire, right?”

Officially the visitors outshot the host Kings 11-4 in that period, but you’d have to really check the game tape to find those four. The visitors had 42 shots overall on the day.

Manchester picked up where it left off at the start of the third, Jake Lessard getting the first of two of his goals at 5:25 on the power play.

Down 4-0, the local Kings woke up, getting goals by Gavin Asimakopoulos, set up by Broden Landsteiner on the power play at 8:43, and than again less than a minute later, this time by David Ramalho, assisted by Brandon Doughty, closing it to 4-2. There was still hope.

Doughty soon after zipped down right wing and had his sights set on Kings goalie Kayden Hinse (25 stops) and the area over his right shoulder, but his shot sailed far over everything, his understandable frustration visible. Soon after, Manchester made it 5-2 Lessard’s second of the period at 13:26, and that was that.

“We had some instances of our game in the third period, and when we did I thought we controlled it,” Sarracco said. “But we didn’t do that as a whole.”

Noah Soule did his best to keep his team in the game with 37 saves. But South-Pelham, after its 18 shots on goal in the first period, managed only nine the rest of the way, leaving Sarracco to search for the right buttons to push. They’re at Bow next on Wednesday.

“We’re a hockey team that should win a lot of hockey games, should compete in a lot of hockey games,” Sarracco said. “Right now, we don’t believe that. We need to change that mindset and we need to start winning some hockey games.”