Teams
In years past, the Appleton United boys' hockey team has been an offensive-minded team with the ability to score almost at will.
This year's version is different, with defense the key.
The United showed how strong its defense is, holding Neenah/Hortonville/ Menasha to 16 shots on goal in a 6-0 win in a Badgerland Conference game at the Appleton Family Ice Center on Thursday.
The United (4-3-0, 3-0-0) also successfully killed seven power plays by the Rockets (6-3-0, 1-2-0).
"All around, I can't complain," United coach Don Hearn said. "We allowed 16 shots on net. Their top line has scored more goals than our entire team."
This time, however, the Rockets' top line of Alec Herb, Michael Kettner and Carson Buksnes was shut down.
"Our emphasis this whole year has been starting with defense and working our way up front," Hearn said. "It's exactly what we did tonight. We played solid defense, which led to turnovers in the neutral zone, which led to our forecheck in their offensive zone, which led to goals."
It's a young defense with one senior, two juniors, two sophomores and one freshman, plus a freshman in goal in James Schroeder.
"I think it's pretty good," said junior defenseman Cliff Watson who had a short-handed goal and two assists. "We're all new. We can bring everything together. It's all fresh. It's really easy to teach young guys and with (James) Schroeder in the net, we've got some bodies back there. We're a real good d-corps team together."
Watson also put the United up 1-0 at 11:30 of the first period 30 seconds into killing off a penalty.
"Our play on the penalty kill is to really get pressure on the puck coming up the ice," he said. "There it was just a puck that popped out and I just tipped it away and went down and shot the puck and got a goal."
The Rockets, who came in averaging 5.4 goals per game, just never could generate any offense.
"We came in a little flat," Rockets coach Jeff Lindemann said. "Bounces weren't going (our way) but we've got to create our own bounces in situations like that. It just seemed like we were fighting ourselves a lot. They (Appleton) came in with a lot of jump in their step and they seemed to be pretty confident in the their play and we were lacking a little bit in that."
The shutout on the power play was certainly a source of frustration.
"Our power play was on a life-support system tonight," Lindemann said. "It was anemic at best. It was not good. It's been pretty good for us. We just didn't move the puck and we didn't get it to the people we needed to.
"Hats off to them. They did a good job of jumping passing lanes in the neutral zone on the breakout in our power play and they did a good job of giving us what they wanted us to get."
Lindemann said his team has some work to do in the next practice.
"We'll be all right," he said. "One game doesn't make the season. We've got a lot of games to get ready for sectionals."
Jim Oskola: joskola@postcrescent.com or 920-993-1000, ext. 230