Icemen making strong case as early Div. 2 favorites

Junior Chris Lavoie has been one of the breakout offensive stars on this year’s top-ranked and undefeated CHS boys hockey team. (Mike Barucci photo)

Update: The Bulldogs ran their season-long winning streak to nine with a 4-0 road win over Foxboro on Wednesday. The team will try to make it a perfect 10 when they host Stoughton Saturday night at the Ice House at 8 p.m.

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With eight wins in their first eight games and a season scoring differential of plus-33, the CHS boys ice hockey team are the current darlings of Massachusetts Division 2 high school hockey and have risen to the top of several regional hockey polls. Led by all-star forwards Ryan Nolte and Johnny Hagan and a new shut-down goalie in senior Michael Staffiere, the Bulldogs have been shredding opponents left and right while looking virtually unbeatable — last week’s close call versus King Philip notwithstanding.

While always somewhere among the handful of top D2 teams and a perennial playoff contender, Canton (8-0-0) seems to have elevated its game to a new level and is off to arguably its best start in the Brian Shuman era — a 12-year stretch that includes a state title and multiple deep tournament runs. Even Coach Shuman himself has been thrilled with the Bulldogs’ play to date, although he cautioned against booking one’s tickets to the Garden just yet.

With the season not even at the halfway mark, Shuman said it’s just “too early to tell” whether the team possesses championship-level DNA.

“We’ve had a really good start, but I’ve seen Canton and non-Canton teams start off with a bang and fizzle as the season’s gone on,” he said. “We definitely need to stay hungry and learn how to play with the bullseye on our back. We get everybody’s best each night when we play a team and we have to expect that and be ready for that.”

Perhaps the clearest example of this came last Wednesday at KP, where the Bulldogs had to endure what Shuman described as an “onslaught of scoring chances” by the Warriors before eking out a win on a late goal by Hagan. Timmy Kelleher also scored for the visitors while Staffiere had several big saves, but Canton still had to sweat this one out as they notched their first one-goal win of the campaign. (The team’s next closest margin of victory was a 3-1 win over archrival Franklin back on December 19.

Perhaps jolted by the competitiveness of the Warriors in a closer than expected battle, the Bulldogs went right back to their high-flying ways on Saturday as they rolled Oliver Ames on the road, collecting three first-period goals en route to a 5-2 win.

Kelleher bookended the scoring with a goal just seconds after the opening faceoff and another on an empty netter late in the final frame. Chris Lavoie and Shane Marshall each had a goal and an assist while Joe Robinson rounded out the scoring on an assist from Ronan O’Mahoney.

Exactly one week earlier, the Bulldogs rode another strong start to a 4-0 win over an excellent Mansfield team on “Hockey Fights Cancer Night” — an annual fundraiser event at the Ice House in memory of the late Reo Todesca of Canton. Staffiere was sensational in the win, stopping all 22 shots he faced to earn his fourth shutout of the season, while Nolte and Hagan accounted for three of the four goals to power the Canton offense.

This week, the Bulldogs were due to play their third consecutive away game with a Wednesday night contest against Foxboro before returning to the Ice House to face Stoughton on Saturday at 8 p.m. The team also faces a tough home test with Newburyport coming to town on Monday followed by a rematch with Franklin at Pirelli Veterans Arena next Wednesday, January 23.

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