By Joshua Boyd / USPHLNCDC.com
The South Shore Kings will go into Saturday with a 1-0 series lead on the host P.A.L. Jr. Islanders after their 3-1 victory at the Northwell Health Ice Center on Friday, March 31.
Game 2, which gives the Kings a chance to win the Dineen Cup in this best-of-three series, starts at 4 p.m. on Saturday, also at Northwell in East Meadow, N.Y.
After the game, Head Coach Tyler Holske took some time to break down his team’s win during an Instagram live interview with The Dan K Show’s Dan Kmiechick that you can find on instagram.com/usphlhockey.
“We spent this past week reviewing some video on these guys. We only played them twice during the regular season, so you’re not too familiar with the opponent, and most teams in this league change throughout the year, so we’re not too familiar with them,” Holske said. “We did a lot of review, a lot of video, on special teams, D zone, their neutral zone play.
“They’re a well-coached team. Mike [Marcou] over there does a really good job. He gets his players to play hard and very structured, so wanted to break down how they want to play,” Holske added. “I thought today we did a really good job defending in layers. Early in the game we did a really good job getting in on the forecheck, really pressuring their D, coming up with pucks. We utilized our points really well, and our guys did a fantastic job working to the net and taking away [Cam Smith’s] eyes. That was kind of our game plan coming into this – take away his eyes, get some traffic. I think our first goal of the game, we had some bodies there and the puck found its way.”
On the first goal, it was the P.A.L. Jr. Islanders who set the tone, with Carter Hanrahan tapping in a shot from Jack Hewitt. D.J. Walsh also had an assist on the play.
The Kings bounced back just short of six minutes later, and with just 20 seconds remaining on the game clock. Jack Barbro launched one in through traffic off the faceoff, with assists going to Karim Gayfullin and Logan Ganz.
The eventual game-winner was scored in the second period, as the Kings worked for exactly six seconds of power play hockey before Kotaro Murase buried it. Helpers to Ben Jenkinson and Jack Hillier.
Aiden Lindley closed off the proceedings with an empty net goal at 19:28 of the third to seal the deal. In net, NCDC veteran Jacob Torgner made 26 saves on 27 shots.
