Boys’ hockey reaches D2 south final four

Senior captain Ben Lodge and the Bulldogs are 3-0 in the playoffs. (Mike Barucci photo)

Update: The CHS boys’ hockey team is headed to the D2 south finals after demolishing No. 1 Plymouth South 7-1 Thursday night at Gallo Rink in Bourne. The Bulldogs will play No. 3 Medfield on Sunday, March 9, at 4:45 p.m. The winner moves on to the Division 2 state championship game.

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Way back on New Year’s Day, after the CHS boys’ ice hockey team fell to 0-2-2 with a loss to highly touted Medway, veteran head coach Brian Shuman calmly predicted that the Bulldogs would be fine — that their brutal early season schedule might even be a blessing in disguise and that it could serve them well down the stretch and come playoff time.

And the coach, it turns out, was right on the money.

Led by their talented sophomore goalie and a whole cast of characters who seem to be at their best when the lights shine brightest, the fifth-seeded Bulldogs opened the Division 2 south playoffs with a bang last week, knocking off No. 12 Scituate and No. 4 Medway to reach the sectional semifinals for the second year in a row.

The red-hot Bulldogs, winners of 11 of their last 12 games, will now move on to face top-seeded Plymouth South tonight at the Gallo Ice Arena in Bourne, with the winner advancing to play either Oliver Ames or Medfield — two teams Canton has already beaten this season — for a shot at the D2 south title.

Getting there won’t be easy, of course, especially with a Plymouth South team standing in their way that has lost only three times all year and seems to “have it all,” according to Shuman.

“They have some big wins this year and they play in a tough league,” Shuman said of the Panthers. “They’ve got great goaltending; they’ve got some guys up front who are grinders who play the body and can score; and they’ve got a good defense. Right now, they’re the best in the south.”

Canton, meanwhile, boasts an impressive resume of its own, with a 14-4-4 overall record and several big wins against top-tier opponents.

Scituate, last week’s opening round opponent, for instance, was a perennial Division 3 power before moving up to Division 2 this year and “definitely came as advertised,” said Shuman.

But the Bulldogs, playing on home ice in the playoffs for the first time in recent memory, proved to be the superior team Tuesday night, as they generated a boatload of early scoring chances and pretty much controlled the pace of play before cashing in with back-to-back goals late in the second period.

Sophomore Matt Lazaro struck first, burying a rebound off a shot by John Femia for his team-leading 22^nd goal of the season. Junior Brian Hagan would follow just two minutes later, scoring off a pass from freshman Jerry Harding to put Canton up 2-0 heading into the third.

Lazaro then added another goal early in the final period to give the Bulldogs a commanding three-goal advantage, but Scituate refused to go down quietly, scoring shortly thereafter to make it 3-1 and generating several late scoring chances.

“They really took it to us at the end of the game,” said Shuman afterwards. “But our team played well and overall it was a good playoff win against a good team.”

Shuman also praised the hundreds of Bulldog fans who turned out for the game. “It was so cool seeing a crowd like that,” he said. “It was one of the biggest crowds I’ve seen in Canton and it was just a great atmosphere. Scituate brought lot of people too, which made it even more exciting.”

Four days later, on Saturday, the Bulldogs traveled to Asiaf Rink in Brockton to face a very talented Medway team and skated away with a 2-0 win — avenging their 3-2 loss on New Year’s Day.

Surprisingly, Canton looked slow out of the gate, yet sophomore goalie Justin Slocum helped keep his team in the game as he stopped all nine shots he faced in a scoreless first period.

“That was one of our worst periods of the season,” said Shuman after the game. “Medway looked like the faster, stronger, better team, but [Slocum] really stepped up for us, which is exactly what you need in that situation. He was just so solid and poised and confident.”

After coming away unscathed in the first, the Bulldogs had the edge for the remainder of the contest, getting one goal each over the final two periods while playing excellent defense to seal the 2-0 victory.

Fittingly, the two Canton goals were scored by two of the team’s hottest players: senior Kevin O’Brien, who scored on a breakaway in the second period, and Hagan, who knocked in a rebound off an Austin Zannino shot from the blue line early in the third.

“Both players have been huge as of late,” said Shuman. “In the last three weeks especially, they have probably been two of our best players. [O’Brien] has been all over the ice and has provided a lot of spark, and Hagan seems to be always around the net.”

Several other players have stepped up for the Bulldogs as well, including senior captain Ben Lodge, senior Brendan Logan, and sophomores Lazaro and Bobby Mullaney, among others.

The entire team, in fact, has been playing its best hockey of the season and seems to be peaking at exactly the right time, and Shuman hopes that trend will continue tonight against Plymouth South beginning at 7:30 at Gallo Arena in Bourne.

“It should be a good one,” the coach predicted.

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