If you like hockey games filled with body checks and rattling boards, check out Saturday’s Division III championship between No. 1 John Stark-Hopkinton (19-1-0) and No. 2 Monadnock-Fall Mountain (17-3-0).
“It’s going to be physical. It will be more physical than what this game was,” Stark-Hopkinton coach Denis Kolehmainen said after his team’s 4-2 semifinal win against No. 4 Berlin on Wednesday night in Plymouth. “They play a more physical game, but we have guys that can play physical also. We have some skilled players that can buzz, too, so it’s going to be an interesting game.”
Kolehmainen knows all about the Huskies – the General Hawks beat Monadnock-Fall Mountain, 6-0, on Jan. 2 and again on Feb. 24, the last game of the regular-season for both teams, hanging on for a 5-4 decision. Senior Paul Molnar scored all five goals for JSH in the Feb. 24 game, and the General Hawks held a 5-1 lead going into the third before Monadnock-Fall Mountain rallied with some late power-play goals.
“It should be a very good game. It’s probably going to be heavy hitting,” JSH senior goalie Jameson Bourque said of the final, which is scheduled to start at 12:15 p.m. at SNHU Arena in Manchester. “We have to make sure we stay out of the box, though, because their power play will kill us. They scored three on us just on power plays when we last played them, so just staying out of the box will be huge.”
Bourque and the General Hawks know what it takes to win a title. The goalie had 25 saves in last year’s final as JSH beat Kennett, 6-2. And Stark-Hopkinton had just two seniors on last year’s roster, so almost the entire team has championship experience.
The General Hawks rolled through the regular season by scoring 5.8 goals per game and giving up just 1.3, and their only loss came against Division II Goffstown. They kept rolling in the postseason, scoring the first four goals against No. 8 Kennett in an 8-3 quarterfinal win and again scoring the first four in the semifinal win against Berlin.
“Hopefully we can jump on (Monadnock-Fall Mountain) just like we did against Kennett and Berlin,” Kolehmainen said. “We’re coming out strong out of the first period and in between each period.”
Toward the end of the regular season, Kolehmainen tried a new line combination with Molnar, junior Brett Patnode and sophomore Nolan Sauer, and those three have been on fire in the playoffs. Patnode, who recorded the 100th point of his career in the regular-season finale against Monadnock-Fall Mountain, has three goals and four assists in the last two games; Sauer, who scored twice in last year’s final, has two goals and four assists; and Molnar has three goals and two assists.
“We were scoring like crazy,” Molnar said after the quarterfinal win. “We all pretty much knew where each other would be and we were just setting each other up all the time.”
While that top line may be extremely talented, JSH’s true strength is in its depth. Benny Madden scored a goal in both the quarterfinal and semifinal, and he tallied an assist in the regular-season finale against Monadnock-Fall Mountain, as did Tyler Scordo, Ethan Molnar and Owen Olson. All season long the General Hawks have owned the third period because they’ve worn teams down with their top three lines and strong defensive core, which features seniors Jake Cole and Joe Sawitsky and juniors Carter Pike and Cabot Lineberry.
While the defending champs are the favorites to win again on Saturday, the Huskies have to be feeling pretty good about themselves. They dominated No. 7 Pembroke-Campbell in their 6-0 quarterfinal win and they took advantage of a big break in their 3-2 semifinal win against No. 3 Belmont-Gilford.
It looked the Bulldogs had tied that game at 2-2, but the goal was called back and off the ensuing faceoff MFM’s Justin Joslyn got free on a breakaway and scored his second goal of the game. Lincoln Blodgett added a goal and an assist for the Huskies in that semifinal win.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20)