"The minutes turn to hours . . . " Hanover 3 - Londonderry 1

Everett Logan reports in after a late night in Southern NH:

Being the last seed in the playoffs often means you have to play the hand you’re dealt, no matter how lousy. The Marauders opened the 2016 NHIAA Division I playoffs as the tenth seed against the host number seven seed Londonderry Lancers. Londonderry, with no permanent home rink of their own, decided to play some mind games with the Marauders by setting the game at 8:20 on a school night and at the Salem Icenter, the second furthest rink from Hanover in all of Division I, and one with an immense Olympic ice sheet that does not favor the Marauder’s grinding style of play. 

The shenanigans seemed as if they would pay off for the Lancers for much of the game, as they opened the scoring just 3:30 into the first period when senior captain Nick Donnelly beat Hanover goalie Gabe Loud with a wrist shot from the right face-off circle that found the top corner. Even NHL players have a hard time playing a physical game on Olympic rinks, and the Marauders were unable to establish much on the forecheck or slow the speedy Lancers’ first line down due to the massive ice surface. 

As if the game time and location were not enough, the referees seemed to add insult to injury as Hanover had the first of two apparent goals waved off. The first occurred midway through the first period when captain Johnny Goff seemingly put in the equalizer in a goal-mouth scramble. However, the referee clearly missed the puck entering the net and the teams ended the period with the 1-0 Londonderry lead intact.

The second period saw plenty of back-and-forth action on the large sheet, but Hanover was the only team able to put the puck past their opponent's goaltender. Seth Stadheim took a pass from his own zone and streaked behind the last Lancer defender to break in alone on goalie Cody Baldwin. Stadheim decked to his backhand and banked the puck into the net off of Baldwin’s pad. However, having to cover the large expanse of the Olympic rink clearly took its toll on the officiating crew, and an apparently winded referee did not hustle back with the breakaway and found himself a good sixty feet away from the net when the puck went in. He blew his whistle when he lost sight of the puck and shortly thereafter signaled no goal, waiting for Baldwin to produce the puck. When the puck was eventually retrieved buried in the inside of the goal, the referee looked sheepish but refused to reverse his call and signal a goal, to the anger and astonishment of the Hanover fans. On the other end of the ice, Loud proved equal to everything Londonderry could throw at him, and the second period ended the same as the first, with another uncalled Hanover goal and a 1-0 lead for the hosts. 

Hanover pulled out all the stops in the third and finally found a way to mount consistent pressure on the Lancers. Hanover showed that they were the better conditioned team as the large ice surface seemed to catch up to the home team as the game wore on. Loud made the save of the evening to keep Londonderry from securing an insurance goal when he shut down a Patrick Maloney breakaway to keep the game at 1-0. Nevertheless, Baldwin was equaling Loud in keeping quality shots at bay, and as the game clock ticked down, it looked like it would be a frustrating and heartbreakingly unjust end to the Marauders’ season. 


But, with just 5:33 left to play, captain Eric McCoy dished to linemate David Lehmann just inside the Londonderry blue line, and Lehmann fired a low wrist shot that beat Baldwin on the near post. The third time of putting a puck in the net was the charm for Hanover and this goal was finally officially tallied for the tying score. 

The equalizer energize the Marauders and deflated the Lancers, and just one minute later, defenseman Patrick Logan threaded 90-foot a pass across two zones to Goff who quickly beat his defender and wristed the go-ahead goal past Baldwin. The Marauders erupted in celebration, but there were still four and half minutes of hockey left to be played. As Gordon Lightfoot said of the waves that wrecked the Edmund Fitzgerald, the minutes turn to hours when nursing a one-goal lead in the third. With a minute and a half remaining, Baldwin retreated to the Lancer bench in favor of an extra attacker. After a moment of furious attack, Logan was able to clear the puck out of the zone up the right wing boards, where it was gathered by Stadheim, who quickly fed to Goff. The captain circled hard to the left to elude the last Lancer defender before getting his hands free to fire the puck from the Londonderry blue line into the center of the empty net and the insurance goal Hanover needed.

After Londonderry gained possession, they again pulled Baldwin, but their fate had been sealed and they were unable to mount significant pressure. The clock finally expired on the Longest Night, and Hanover mobbed Loud and his 26-save effort that brought home the 3-1 victory. With the win, the Marauders move on to the quarterfinals, facing second-seeded Bedford at 2:00 on Saturday at Sullivan Arena on the campus of Saint Anselm College. Hanover looks to avenge a 6-0 loss earlier in the season at the hands of the Bulldogs, while Bedford looks to move on toward its first ever Division I championship.