West Hartford crosstown rivals Conard and Hall met in boys hockey Saturday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Rink.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

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Defending State Champion Conard used a four-goal outburst in the second period to shut out Hall, 6-0, in boys hockey in the latest edition of the crosstown rivalry. The Red Wolves move to 2-0 and ranked third in D III with the win, while Hall falls to 1-1 on the season and No. 7 in DIII.

Hall looked to set the tone early with its physical play, only to see Ben Goldstein whistled off for roughing 1:10 into the action. Sixty seconds into the man advantage, defenseman Dylan Smith took a shot but Hall goalie Matt Bonner made the glove save. Conard would control the flow of the game and at 4:14 of the first senior Jack Eisenberg opened the scoring when his shot banked off the post and in for the 1-0 lead. Liam Alver picked up the assist for Conard.

Just past the 9-minute mark it was senior defenseman Luke Shaffer scoring the first of his two goals when  his shot through traffic found the back of the net. The Titans nearly cut the lead when Charlie Gainey fed Dillon McDermott in a 2-on-1 chance but Conard goalie Brendan Murphy made the save. Shaffer nearly scored again in the first when he picked off a Hall pass at the blue line and cruised in on Bonner, but once again the junior goalie was on his game.

“We stayed focused and decided to keep moving the puck when they got physical,” said Conard head coach Jason Olson.

Trailing by two entering the second period, Hall put itself in a hole when McDermott took a roughing penalty in the defensive zone just :08 in. The Titans managed to withstand the power play pressure, but six seconds after it expired, with the Red Wolves keeping possession of the puck in the offensive zone, Bonner made a big stick save.

Then it was Brady Narus with a pretty solo effort that gave Conard a 3-0 lead. The senior forward picked up the puck inside his own blueline, skated along the right wing and snapped off a wrister from the dot that beat Bonner. Hall responded and had what would be their best stretch of offense after that goal. Declan Stone had a good chance from the half boards but Murphy took it into his chest and held on.

The fate of both teams would be sealed in a one-minute forty-eight second period of the second. Conard’s Gavin Mangini took  a penalty at 9:38 putting Hall on the power play. Forty-five seconds later, the Titans Stone was called for interference turning into a 4 on 4 situation with the face-off taking place in the Hall defensive zone. Just :08 in the Red Wolves took advantage when Shaffer scored his second of the game when his shot hit someone in a crowd in front of Bonner and went in.

The hosts kept up the pressure, and at 7:50 they got some puck luck to turn it into a 5-0 game. Eisenberg’s shot hit Bonner’s mask and deflected high in the air. Torin McGoldrick was the first to locate the puck and banged it home before Bonner, or anyone else, could react. “I was worried about our scoring depth,” Olson said. “We lost two, 100-point career scorers to graduation.”

After Conard took an interference penalty at 12:41, Hall had a run of possession that kept Murphy and his defense busy. One of the Titans’ better chances came when Tommy Finley let a shot go from the half boards, but the goalie was there to cover the shot as it hit the logo on his chance. As the powerplay and the period were ticking down, Conard would strike one more time as Mangini exited the penalty box with :19 to go in the period. McGoldrick picked up a loose puck and as he started to skate out of his zone, he saw Mangini all alone at center ice. His tape-to-tape pass sent Mangini in all alone on Bonner and he did not miss, making it 6-0 with just 5.7 seconds showing on the clock.

“We didn’t come in as prepared as we had hope,” said Hall head coach Colin O’Connor. The Titans had been off 10 days since their opening win of the season. “We have to work every day to get better, and in the third period I saw some of that resiliency,” the coach added.

Hall is also missing three players and that has forced players into unfamiliar roles. “We’ve got to find the right homes as we get players back,” O’Connor said. Bonner would finish the game with 30 saves and O’Connor said the junior goalie found his game in the third period. The Titans have another long break now, not returning to action until Jan. 4.

“I saw a ton of growth (today) from our first,” Olson said of the Red Wolves. “We were more responsible with our back checking and puck support and those are good signs this early in the season.”

Conard will look to stay unbeaten when they host Enfield on Monday night.

Game notes

Conard senior forward Oliver Levesque was honored before the game with the Luke Roux Memorial Scholarship. Luke was a former West Hartford Wolves and Farmington High School hockey player who was killed by a drunk driver in 2022 just days after graduating high school. The award goes to the player “that is most like Luke. The quiet leader, the player that just always shows up and works hard.”

Luke’s parents, who were on hand Saturday, founded the Luke Roux Foundation to reduce impaired driving with the ultimate goal being to eliminate fatalities.

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