CANTLON: TAFT RHINOS RUN OVER GUNNERY HIGHLANDERS 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

WATERTOWN, CT – The Taft Rhinos scored four goals in a wild six-goal second period at home at the Odden Arena to slip past the Gunnery (Washington) Highlanders 5-3 on Monday evening.

In the first period, Zach Tonelli (Armonk, NY) was at the right side of the net and knocked in the rebound of Tristan Fasig’s (Sherman) shot at 13:52 for the 1-0 lead.

Gunnery scored two early goals and looked as if it would be a long early evening for Taft.

46 seconds into the second stanza, Matteo Giampa (Virgil, Ontario) was on the right-wing and took a feed from David Andreychuk (no relation to the former NHL’er) putting it past Mikey Roberts (Wilton).

At 4:48, the Gunnery was on the power play and saw the Highlanders win the draw and get the puck got back to Samuel Logan at the left point, but his shot was stopped.

The Highlanders’ Matt D’Agostino (North Branford) and a UCONN commit next season, sent a short pass to Alexander Jefferies (a Merrimack HE commit) and a right-handed shot in the left-wing circle.

Jeffries put a perfect shot under the crossbar and over Roberts’ right shoulder and the Highlanders seemed to have the game in control at 2-1 and were about to pull away.

But that began a wild remaining 13 minutes and 12 seconds.

Taft’s Nick Cullinan scooted up the left-wing took a superb cross-ice pass from Tonelli and beat Gunnery goalie, Carmine Andranovich, to the far side and low at 5:53 to tie the game at two.

Taft would the lead at 3-2 when Tonelli, who was in traffic, pushed a backhander past Adranovich at 8:17 for his third point of the game.

The two teams pushed hard to break the tie. Gunnery’s Dane Dowiak (Wexford, PA), a Penn State commit in two years, was on one short-handed situation had three quality chances all stopped by Roberts.

Just 21 seconds after that, D’Agostino would have another one from off the left-wing. The last chance set off a wild series of events.

On a turnover, Gunnery had a two-on-zero short-handed breakaway and D’Agostino elected to take a shot from twenty-feet out and it missed the net.

The puck went around the boards and off Taft went in transition.

Nikita Kovalev (Greenwich) was on the right-wing and got the feed from his center, Thomas Ricciardelli (New Canaan), at 14:33 deposited the puck into the back of the net to take a 4-2 lead.

In the third period, Taft set up a strong defense to clog the middle on the freewheeling Highlanders as Bobby Barrasso, Conor Colucci (Fairfield), and Kovalev did a strong job.

Tristan Fasig nearly got the two-goal lead but were stopped. Then at 13:50, D’Agostino nearly got it for Gunnery with a great shot opportunity dead center fifteen-feet out missed the net again.

Gunnery followed with a late power play and executed it perfectly after taking a timeout.

Off a draw, the puck was corralled. Dowiak was at the left point and sent a short pass over to Andreychuk deep in the right corner just outside of the faceoff circle.

Then he put a pass along the ice that Giampa tallied his second of the game with a perfect redirect that Roberts had no chance on at 15:46 and narrowed the Taft lead to 4-3.

Taft’s Colucci made two strong defensive plays in the final minute of play, first a block and then got to a loose puck and got it out of the zone that kept Gunnery at bay.

Ed Rayhill (New Hartford, NY) at the top of the left-wing circle was the Highlanders had the last best chance with 35.2 seconds left that Roberts turned away before the Rhinos Henry Molson closed out the scoring with an empty netter with 11.4 seconds left.

Taft’s record goes to 3-6-0 and they at Westminster (Simsbury) Wednesday at 2:30 pm.

Gunnery’s record (7-3-1) plays Hoosac School (Hoosick, NY) at home on Thursday at 4:00 pm.

NOTES:

Two former Wolf Pack players were among the NHL three stars.

Defenseman Tony D’Angelo had a sterling five-point effort against Colorado and goalie Cam Talbot now on the other side of the Battle of Alberta helped Calgary in a 4-3 win Saturday for the Flames vaulting them into first place.

Current Wolf Pack Phil Di Giuseppe recalled Sunday and captain Steven Fogarty reassigned to Hartford was scratched from last night’s 6-2 win over the Islanders.