When you think of prep school powerhouses, Dexter Southfield and defending champs Kimball Union are likely foremost in the conversation. And thus you would reasonably think that if a team can beat either of those teams, it should get a mention as well.
But what if I told you there was a team that defeated both of those powerhouses earlier this month? And in back-to-back games, two days apart?
Surely, that team would be considered a contender in the prep school circuit.
That team would be the New Hampton Huskies, 21-7-3 and making some serious noise at the right time of year in the Lakes Region.
A turning point of sorts seemed to come after a 4-0 loss to Dexter Southfield on Jan. 18. After that, the Huskies rattled off wins against Vermont Academy (6-3) and Brewster Academy (10-1), tied Tilton (1-1), then beat Holderness (4-0), before beating St. Paul's twice (6-2 and 5-3).
Their next game promised to be a more exacting test, facing Kimball Union at home, the Jacobson Arena. And although they lost, 7-6 in overtime, the Huskies came away suddenly believing they could hang with the big dogs.
"The KUA loss, 7-6, was our turning point," said coach Connor Gorman, 27, who's from Shrewsbury, Mass. "We were up in that game, 5-3, going into the third period. They’re a resilient team, well-coached, really deep, and we knew they were going to throw everything at us."
And the Tim Whitehead-coached Wildcats did just that, coming back to tie it before New Hampton jumped out to a 6-5 lead. But then a penalty with a minute and one second left opened the door for highly ranked KUA.
"You give a team in the top 15, especially a top-five team, a chance on the power play at the end of the game ..." Gorman said, leaving the obvious unsaid. "They buried a kind of greasy one that hit our guy’s foot and went in, and then we left it to chance and they beat us in overtime.
"I’m a young coach and it was funny because when I was a player, you always hated it when a coach came in and said, 'You should leave this rink with your head held high.’ You’re kind of like, ‘Coach, I don’t want to hear that, we just lost.’ And I did it, I said that to them because it was true. We deserved to win that game.
"I’m a big believer in the hockey gods, and they just weren’t in our favor that day. And I said at some point they will be, and maybe it’s (the next game) against Dexter, maybe it’s the next time we play KUA, maybe it’s in the Lakes Region playoffs, maybe it’s in the NEPSAC championship, who knows.
"But I’m a big believer that if you stay the course, you really buy in and work, you’ll get a bounce. And sure enough we played Dexter that Wednesday and we’ve been kind of rolling ever since."
In that next game, four days later, they hosted Dexter Southfield and won, 7-4, leaving little doubt that they were for real. And is if putting an exclamation point on their status, they dumped Kimball Union, 6-3, in a rematch on Valentine's Day.
That's worth repeating, for emphasis: New Hampton beat Dexter Southfield and Kimball Union -- two teams regularly ranked in the top five of our coaches rankings -- by a combined score of 13-7 within three days.
In fact, the voting coaches on our poll panel thought the results impressive enough to vote New Hampton into consideration for the latest New England Hockey Journal top 10 (the Huskies were 11th). The giant killer has emerged at precisely the right time.
How are they doing it? Contrary to how it's traditionally done, New Hampton is focusing on offense first.
"We do it a bit differently here," said Gorman, who served last year as assistant to Casey Kesselring, who did not return for this season. "This is my first year as a head coach, but we taught our offensive zone first before we taught our D zone. And the reason for that, and some people may agree or disagree, but that’s fine: it’s really hard to score goals.
"We want to make sure that we’re so fine-tuned in the offensive zone with our puck pursuit and our rotation and being in the right areas and supporting the puck, and that’s a little more challenging to teach than the D zone. Because in the D zone, it’s protecting the house, being long and physical with your body and your stick, and then just having a desire to actually block a shot.
"And if you can do those three things, it doesn’t matter what D zone you run, in my opinion. Especially at this level. If you want to block shots, if you want to be long, if you want to take a beating, you want to not cheat the game, our D zone will take care of itself. The harder we play in the O zone, the less D we get to play, that’s what I tell the guys."
A young coach and a veteran team have combined to give the opposition fits. This season, that offense-first approach has resulted in players rolling up impressive points: center Marcus Joughin (Sacred Heart commit) leads with a whopping 75 points off 15 goals and 60 assists, linemates Isaac McLeod (Dartmouth) is next with a stunning 37 goals and 24 assists for 61 points, and Ryan Mahlmeister is third with 19 goals, 17 assists and 36 points. Joughin and McLeod are the top two scorers in all of New England prep hockey.
The defense doesn't rest, either, joining the play liberally. Will Hilfiker leads the corps offensively with 3 goals and 24 assists for 27 points, but Adam Shuchart is right behind, thanks to a whopping 11 goals to go with 14 assists for 25 points. This is a D that is confident its back will be covered if it joins the rush.
A 2011 New Hampton grad, Gorman lead NEPSAC in scoring in his senior year and scored 94 goals in seven total junior (New Hampshire Junior Monarchs), college (SUNY-Plattsburgh) and pro (Peoria Rivermen) seasons after prep school. But he says his ability to score goals didn't influence his approach as a coach.
"Where I played in my career, I was fortunate to be a fairly good goal scorer and I manufactured goals in various different ways," he said. "I was more of a hang-around-the-net, finish in those soft areas, just jamming-it-home (scorer)."
But stats remain important to Gorman and the Huskies because he believes some teams look at the numbers first when recruiting. The most important number is plus/minus, beyond goals and assists.
"We check the stats and make sure they’re accurate, but the only number we should worry about is if you’re a plus player," he said. "And the reason behind that is you could have three points a game, but if you’re on the ice for three goals against, you’re an even player, that’s not helping us out."
This has all added up to a pretty stellar debut for a rookie coach in the prep school ranks.
"We’re winning a lot, so I’ve been fortunate there haven’t been too many headaches or anything like that," Gorman said. "I always want to be a coach that is approachable, not one of the boys, but (one) that they feel comfortable around.
"But I’d say the biggest challenge, and the advice I got when I got this job was to not get little-boyed. What I mean by that is having people push me around and just kind of say, 'You should do this, what do you really know, you haven’t done this long enough,' little stuff like that. I wouldn’t say that’s happened much, but it’s definitely something I keep my eyes peeled, my ears open for it.
"I know the game really well. Do I know everything about the game? No, I’m always trying to learn as a coach. I wouldn’t say it’s the biggest challenge, but it’s something I know could be a challenge."
The challenge ahead will be the biggest of the season for the new giant killers: Closing the season out against Cushing Academy on Wednesday. Then, playoff action in the Lakes Region starts Friday, with No. 2 seed New Hampton playing No. 3 seed Tilton. In the other semi, KUA takes on Proctor.
Paul Grant is an editor and a writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
