Junior forwards Gavin Moss and Jackson Rudl each powered home a pair of goals and Park’s winning ways continued Saturday night in a rousing 6-1 win over rival Woodbury.
The Wolfpack jumped …
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Junior forwards Gavin Moss and Jackson Rudl each powered home a pair of goals and Park’s winning ways continued Saturday night in a rousing 6-1 win over rival Woodbury.
The Wolfpack jumped out to a 4-0 lead after one period and had the Royals on their heels the entire match.
It was Park’s third straight win and fourth victory in the last five games. Park improved to 4-2 in the Suburban East Conference and 7-5 on the season.
It’s a different looking team than the one which struggled in four straight losses in mid-December.
“We’ve had really good practices lately,” said Schwartz when asked what has turned the season around for the Wolfpack. “We’ve just been working on our systems a little more, getting gritty, buzzing. That’s about it.
Asked the same question, Park’s Owen Corkish had a similar answer. “Just like Caden Schwartz said, the practices have been better, we’ve been executing more. Just the chemistry’s there. We’ve pieced it together and it’s all coming our as a result right now.
“We use everybody, everybody contributes,” Corkish added. ”It’s not like we have one line or anything like that. We all chip in and we see the outcome in our games now. … Our breakouts were amazing, our penalty kills saved us a lot and definitely our goalie back in net there.”
Saturday night the Wolfpack wasted no time putting the puck in the back of the net as Gavin Sand (5:33), Gavin Moss (7:50), Jackson Rudh (8:43) and Moss again (14:00) all scored in the first period.
The Wolfpack scored three goals in three minutes and scored in just about every way possible, Sand’s first goal came on a power play. The next two Park tallies were short-handed scores. On the fourth goal of the period, Moss put in an even strength score with assists by Rudh and Caden Schwartz.
Woodbury scored its only goal in the second period to cut Park’s lead to 4-1.
Park added insult to injury with a power play goal by Rudh at the 12:20 mark of the third period and the Wolfpack finished off the game with a goal by Michael DeStasio a minute later.
Park’s Owen Corkish, Brady Nadler and Schwartz had two assists apiece, while Sand, Max Kaplan, Rudh and Adam Friermann had one each.
As impressive as the Park offense was, Wolfpack head coach Jeff Corkish was quick to credit the Park defense as a key to the win. Park allowed just 13 shots on goal, after giving up just eight SOG in Thursday’s win over Roseville. Junior Aidan Miller got both goal tending victories.
Woodbury dropped to 3-3 in the SEC and 7-7 overall.
ON THE SEASON – Rudh, Corkish and Moss have formed a powerful scoring machine as expected. Rudh leads the team with 14 goals and has 11 assists. Corkish has 6 goals and 15 assists and Moss has 9 goals and 11 assists.
Park 6, Roseville 1
Whatever was working in Duluth for the Park boys hockey team during the holiday tournament was still working at Cottage Grove Thursday as the host Wolfpack routed visiting Roseville 6-1.
Park (2-2, 5-5) and Roseville (1-2, 6-4-1) came into the contest with similar season records but Park was by far the superior team Thursday.
It was Park’s third win in the last four games, finally putting to bed an ugly five-game mid-December losing streak.
The Wolfpack jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first period and led 5-0 after two. Max Kaplan, Jackson Rudh, Michael Destasio, Caden Schwartz, Eli Daly and Gavin Moss each scored a goal for the Wolfpack.
Owen Corkish had three assists to lead Park, giving him 13 assists on the season in addition to his six goals. Cole Talledge had two assists. Moss, Wyatt Beaurline, Nick Bailey, Rudh and Daly each recorded one assist for Park.
Park’s defense allowed just eight shots on goal and goalie Aidan Millar stopped all but one of them. To contrast that, Park banged for a whopping 47 shots on goal.
“I think the biggest thing for us is time,” said Park head coach Corkish. “You know the first half of the year the time we’ve had together so far, I mean there’s six new coaches. None of us have worked together. We had to get to know each other, how we practice, who is doing video, who is cutting this and who is cutting that and who is working with this group of kids. We just had to get to know ourselves. And then the ability to know who the kids were.
“I’ve worked with a lot of these kids because growing up with them since they were four years old but all these other guys had to get to know who they were and how they worked,” Corkish added. “So we have three defensive coaches and two forward coaches and a goalie coach, They just had to have time to understand who we were and what our identity was and we had to figure out what our weaknesses were. And sometimes as a group when you’re coaching kids this age, in high school you have to have time to play in games to find what the realities – you can practice all day long but if you don’t do things in games you’re not going to see what your consistency misses are.
Park is on the road for its next two games, playing the two teams leading the conference. The Wolfpack are at league-leading White Bear Lake (6-1, 7-3-1) Thursday, Jan. 11 with a 7 p.m. start, and then at Cretin-Derham Hall (5-1, 7-4) on Saturday, starting at 3 p.m.
