On November 9^th, 2024 at 2:00pm EST, MCLA and Salem State got their MASCAC seasons underway at Rockett Arena. Both teams entered the game with winless interconference records with MCLA having dropped two road contests to St. Michael’s, and Salem State having dropped their opener to Salve Regina and a tight overtime contest to Suffolk. Notable roster updates for the match would be the return of Cade Herrera to the MCLA lineup after missing the first two games of the year with an ailment and Salem State going with Will Nepveu for the second time in three games, confirming that he is the 1A starter for this group this season.

               The first period started with some great fore-checking and possession play from the Salem State Vikings as they outshot the Trailblazers by a margin of 10:1 through the opening half of the frame. As expected, Mathew Gover came up big on several moderate-danger bids in that stretch for MCLA, but the defense did a great job keeping Salem State’s best scorers from getting to their sweet spots on the ice. Toward the back half of the period, MCLA managed to mount a furious sequence of chances at the goal mouth with Herrera, Schifferl, and Moore in tight, but Nepveu stood tall and prevented the Trailblazers from taking a lead in the opening. After those twenty minutes, the shot total was 15-10 in favor as MCLA, as they put together their best offensive effort of the season to that point.

               The second period was one of few noteworthy events but was one of the most kinetic and enjoyable periods of either MCLA or Salem State hockey I’ve watched in the past two seasons. MCLA seemingly found who they were in the offensive zone in the frame, leveraging individual skill and strength in transition to create space to generate scoring chances while Salem State leveraged their more precise passing and speed in transition to generate an attack. Despite these exceptional efforts from both groups, neither team was able to establish much of an edge in the shot column (15-14 in favor of the Vikings), nor were they able to solve the opposing goaltenders.

               The third period was where this game took a turn. Two minutes into the frame, Salem State’s Carson James (BSH Acquaintance) was credited with a goal following a weak side defensive breakdown allowed him to corral a rebound from Gover that he was able to bank back in from a difficult angle. Five minutes later, Carson Whitman was able to rip a perfectly placed shot by Gover following a numbers win in transition to get the score of the game to 2-0. Over the next several minutes, the game would become incredibly north and south with Gover and Nepveu trading great saves, and MCLA’s Alex Ferris making an unbelievable break up against a 3-on-1. With the net empty with less than 3-minutes remaining, Coach Ketts used the Claude Julien strategy of taking a D-Zone faceoff with six skaters, and it worked well enough to re-establish offensive zone possession, but the team was unable to capitalize and ended up surrendering an empty net goal to Sean McWhinnie. Following the goal, Easton Moore was called for a delay of game penalty for ripping the puck back down the ice, which, based on previous delay of game/unsportsmanlike omissions in the game by Twogood (Who else?) and McMullen continue to paint the MASCAC as a division 4 caliber league at times, further damaging the marketability of these teams on the national stage, but that’s a rant for another time as we migrate over to Little East Conference Coverage in 2025. On the ensuing powerplay, Luke Day ripped a shot with eyes from the top of the circle through a screen and past Gover to bring the final score of the game to 4-0.

               Overall, the highlight of this game was the first career NCAA shutout by Will Nepveu, who stopped all 39 shots thrown at him by the Trailblazers. Despite MCLA having now gone 8 periods without a goal, they had enough high danger scoring chances and execution on them that Nepveu earned his flowers for this victory for the Vikings. MCLA will go back to the drawing board for their upcoming matchup against Westfield State in two weeks, likely looking to figure out how to finish better. The Vikings look toward their matchup against Fitchburg State on Thursday, November 14^th.