With high school kids sometimes its up to them. You say the right things and it doesn’t matter what you say. It depends if they want to go or not.”

Park head coach Jeff Corkish

Two games after dropping an 8-1 decision to sixth-ranked Cretin-Derham Hall, the Park Wolfpack got a big win of their own Saturday.

The Wolfpack skated to an 8-3 win over visiting Forest Lake, tying their second highest scoring output of the season in a satisfying victory.

It was an odd game. Forest Lake scored the first three goals on power plays and led 3-0 after one period. But from then on it was all Park. The Wolfpack scored three goals in the second period to tie the game then hammered the Rangers 5-0 in the third.

The Wolfpack hurt themselves with penalties in the first period, including a whopping 15 minutes on Gavin Sand for checking from behind and misconduct. Park racked up 23 minutes of penalties in the first period and then just four more minutes the rest of the game.

Owen Corkish had a hat trick to lead Park in scoring. Nick Bailey put in two goals, and Gavin Moss, Gavin Sand and Caden Schwartz each scored once.

Aiden Miller and Hank Voss split the goalie duties. Miller stopped 11 of 14 shots in 17 minutes of play while Voss was a perfect 10-for-10 saves in 34 minutes.

The win also capped a big week for the Wolfpack who earlier defeated rival East Ridge 6-2 on Thursday. Park is now 3-1-1 in its last five games, including wins by five, four and five goals.

Park improved to 5-3-1 in the Suburban East Conference and 10-5-1 on the season.

Forest Lake fell to 2-7 in the SEC and 8-9 overall.

Park plays at always strong Stillwater (12-3, 7-2) Thursday in another SEC battle, then hosts Mounds View (3-14, 0-10) Saturday with a 3:15 p.m. start. Stillwater won the first meeting between the two teams this winter, 10-2, while Park topped Mounds View 4-2 back on Dec. 14.

SEASON STATS: After 16 games, Owen Corkish leads Park in scoring with 17 goals and 23 assists. Moss has 13 goals and 11 assists. Bailey has 7 scores, while Drew Schumacher, Caden Schwartz and Max Kaplan have 6 goals each.

Voss has 162 saves out of 180 shots on goal for a .900 success rate. Miller has 182 saves out of 213 shots for a .854 win ratio.

Park 6, East Ridge 2

Coming off a disastrous third period against Cretin-Derham Hall in their previous game, and facing archrival East Ridge, one would have figured the Park Wolfpack would have come out with their collective hair on fire Thursday night.

It didn’t seem like for a period, however, as East Ridge took an early 1-0 lead in a Suburban East Conference boys hockey match. However, the Wolfpack got additional motivation between the first and second period and came out rolling in the second. That led to a satisfying 6-2 win over the visiting Raptors at Cottage Grove Ice Arena.

Asked the difference between the Cretin game and the second and third periods against East Ridge, Park head coach Jeff Corkish said it’s mostly up to the players.

“With high school kids sometimes its up to them,” said Corkish. You say the right things and it doesn’t matter what you say. It depends if they want to go or not. It has to click and that sometimes the frustrations of coaching high school kids and the beauty of coaching high school kids. Because every minute counts, every bit of energy counts, everything they do matters and how they feel. Did they have long days, did they have long weeks. You don’t know what they’re all going through all the time. And sometimes that makes it difficult to coach them because you don’t know how they’re going to show up. They should show up this way and they show up the other way. And that’s just the way it goes.

“The Cretin game we simply got burned out by the third period,” Corkish added. From a hard week of six periods of hockey, took penalties and it paid off for them. And we’re not worried about that because we know we didn’t have our whole tank of gas that game and we did well for the first two periods in a way. We were there 75 percent. My opinion we were three steps back, three steps off of every battle.”

Park outscored East Ridge 4-1 in the second period to take command of the game, including putting in two goals in just six seconds to close out the period.

The game was tied 2-all, when Max Kaplan scored at 11:44 mark, with assists to Owen Corkish and Like Dahlstrom. Nick Bailey then powered in another goal six second later and Park never looked back.

The Wolfpack added two more goals in the third period on scores by Drew Schumacher and Gavin Sand for the final margin.

Caden Schwartz and Quintin Wilhelmy had Park’s first two goals in the second.

Park dominated the Raptor offensively, outshooting their opponents 30-11. That made is a relatively easy night for goalie Hank Voss, who stopped 9 of 11 shots.

Thursday’s win made it six straight victories for the Wolfpack over the Raptors in boys' hockey. Paek edged East Ridge 4-3 in the first meeting between the two teams this season. The Raptors are 3-7 in the SEC and 7-10 overall after edging Roseville Saturday.