The Owls avenged a season-opening loss to the University of Delaware with a 7-4 win against the Blue Hens at the Flyers Skate Zone on Nov. 1. Temple’s senior defenseman Patrick Hanrahan scored a goal and had three assists and five other Owls scored on the afternoon.
“I don’t think we had the effort on Friday,” Hanrahan said. “We didn’t necessarily focus on that game, but today we were playing with some passion. It was good to see because everybody was moving their feet, skating hard, working hard, hitting and blocking shots. Everybody contributed today. It was a full-team win.”
The victory ended a three-game skid to the Blue Hens, in which the Owls were outscored 17-6.
The Owls scored on two of their six opportunities and their penalty kill held the Blue Hens to one goal on four man-advantage opportunities.
“I know both teams lost some players, so it’s definitely a different landscape from last year,” Hanrahan said. “I just think a lot of our younger guys stepped up.”
Temple jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period when sophomore Devon Thomas and senior Tim Price scored. Price’s goal was the first of his career.
“It meant a lot today,” Price said. “It took a lot of pressure off my back to get a goal at this level, hopefully I keep producing for the team and do what’s best for the team.”
Delaware answered with a goal of its own in the last five minutes of the period.
Owls senior forward Stephen Kennedy scored less than four minutes into the second period, but Delaware answered with a goal of its own minutes later.
Hanrahan scored on the power play and his tally would be the first of three-straight goals by the Owls. Sophomore forward Eric Graham and senior Dan Nucero scored the other goals.
“In practice this week, we focused on generating opportunities off our three-on-two rushes and it was one of the things we didn’t do Friday,” Price said. “Today, we had a lot of the guys going hard to the net and a lot of the goals that we got were just rebounds that the goalie control.”
Temple’s defense won the majority of its one-on-one battles in the game, but the team surrendered a goal late in the third period. Sophomore forward Alex Kempinski answered the Blue Hens’ rally with a tally of his own. Junior goalie Hayden Richards allowed one more goal after that.
Richards started in place of starting sophomore goalie Scott Salamon. Richards followed up his win 4-3 win against Drexel two weeks ago with a good performance against the Blue Hens.
“I think he played great,” Hanrahan said. “He stopped somewhere in the range of 40 shots, but also stopped some big ones where he got big in the net. Even when it was just a two-goal lead he went hard. That was huge for us. To keep us in the lead the entire game, I think that was really big.”
Stephen Godwin Jr. can be reached at stephen.godwin@temple.edu or on Twitter @StephenGodwinJr
Be the first to comment