Short-handed goals do the trick for Souderton in wild win over North Penn

HATFIELD TWP. >> While Souderton enjoyed a celebratory post-game pizza, Indians coach Matthew Montagna kidded that a serving of bread and water would have been more appropriate.

Souderton racked up a total of 29 minutes in the penalty box Thursday night against rival North Penn, but overcame it with three short-handed goals, including two in the final two minutes and the game winner by Tyler Johnson with only 28 seconds to play.

“Jordan Engelhart kind of gave it to me,” Johnson said of his sixth goal of the season. “He definitely made a great play there. He was able to beat off two defenders and then feed it over to me. I just had to put it in the net.”

Engelhart’s setup and Johnson’s finish lifted Souderton to a 6-5 comeback victory, which propelled the Indians (4-1-1) into second place in the Continental Conference.

“It was fun. The arena (Hatfield Ice) was fun and I think it lived up to what we thought it would be,” Montagna said of the contest, a pairing of two of the best in the conference. “I think we got pretty lucky that we came back the way we did. We were undisciplined and I think we gotta play better than that overall but I’ll take two points.”

Souderton’s Gabe Evans completed a hat trick to provide the Indians a 4-3 lead at the end of the second period.

But the Knights (3-2) rallied back on goals by Joshua Kaufold and speedy Joseph Hawks to take a 5-4 advantage with 7:45 to play.

North Penn, peppering the Souderton net with several third-period shots including a couple that banged off the post, nearly made it a two-goal margin but the Indians hung in.

“You’re up 5-4, you get a 5-on-3 power play, and it’s ‘hey, let’s try to move the puck around, try to get one more and bury it here,’” said North Penn coach Kevin Vaitis, whose team was down a defenseman coming in due to illness and had two others go down with injuries. “There were some unfortunate bounces and the puck ends up in the back of our net — tie game.

“And then (Souderton) got another one with 28 seconds left. Giving up three short-handed goals stings but for a lot of the players on this team — it’s a young team, tonight’s game was a learning opportunity for them.”

Goals by Hawks and Andrew Galetta got the Knights out to a 2-0 lead before Souderton shaved the margin to one goal at the end of the first with a tally by Evans.

Evans tied it up on the power play early in the second and then Tyler Apple pushed Big Red into the lead for the first time, 3-2. Nathan Oh evened things up for the Knights before Evans made it 4-3, setting up a wild third period at Hatfield Ice.

“We definitely need to minimize the penalties in the future,” Johnson said. “Not exactly how I want the game to go (laugh). I wanted it to be a lot cleaner than that. It was really chippy, a lot more chippy than I was expecting, but we battled through and won.”