HATFIELD- Laced up skates, taped up sticks and a fresh sheet of ice, it was time for Knights’ ice hockey and in their 15th matchup of the season, the boys in blue stapled another game into the win column Wednesday night.

The North Penn Knights (10-3-2) hosted and defeated the Council Rock North Indians (3-12) by a score of 10-0 at Hatfield Ice where a dominating offensive performance and a shutdown goaltending display propelled North Penn over the visiting Indians, and sent the home crowd home happy following a game dedicated to the seniors.

“We are playing really well as a team and we have one more game left before playoffs begin. It was a special night for all of our 9 graduating seniors that have been apart of the program for a number of years so it was all about them tonight and good for us to pick up a win as well heading into next week’s game,” said Knights Head Coach, Kevin Vaitis.

A back and forth dishing of the puck into the oppositions end of the ice and lockdown defense was the theme of the first half of the first period. However, Knights senior and captain, Jared Albano put North Penn on the board first after fellow senior, Nate Oh, would send a cross crease leading pass straight onto the stick of the captain for the easy bank home past Indian’s goaltender, Rex Goldberg.

“In practice we’ve been working a lot on cycling the puck down low and moving the puck and if we continue to have good chemistry and move the puck efficiently, that will lead to a lot of good chances and score more goals,” explained Knights senior, Nate Oh.

Before concluding the first period, it was three straight goals for the Knights as seniors William Hughes, Nate Oh, and Jake Nelson hoisted North Penn to a 4-0 lead thanks to a Hughes wrister over Goldberg’s glove, Oh chip shot straight off an offensive zone faceoff, and a Nelson redirection following a shot from junior Josh Kaufhold.

“We have a lot of seniors and have been playing with the same younger players for a couple years now so we have been able to build chemistry that shows on the ice and for them in their future years. We are even all around and have a good all around roster that makes it exciting for playoffs,” said senior Jake Nelson.

A period which included 5 more goals put up by the Knight’s offense, North Penn’s freshmen Tony Tuozzo, juniors Tyler Greenstein and Josh Kaufhold, and seniors Connor Selb and Eric Sarback made connections with the back of the net to send the Knights into the final period of play with only one more goal needed to cap off the mercy rule victory.

“I continue to tell the team, no matter what, that we have to keep working hard and we just gotta keep pouring it on, continue to work together and there we go, we’re ending early and that’s what hard work leads to right there, stated Albano.

The third period included a North Penn shutout and commanding lead. Highlighting the exceptional defensive effort put up by the Knights in the contest was sophomores Ryan Cunningham and Chase Mueller who would both disrupt and break up a two-on-one opportunity for the Indian’s offense. In addition, senior Andrew Zanoni put up a 1.000% save percentage in net for North Penn and held Council Rock North scoreless all the way up to the final horn.

The mercy rule was capped off by a wrist shot off the stick of Josh Kaufhold, who tallied up his second goal on the night, and sent both squads to center ice for post game handshakes.

“I tell these guys that we have been working all season for this moment. I look at all of these games as games that get us ready for playoffs and once we have playoffs, we will then have the Flyer’s Cup right around the corner and we want to be fine tuned in our game, eliminate the number of possible mistakes we are making in our game and get ready for the first playoff game that we are gonna have in a week and a half,” stated coach Vaitis.

The Knight’s ice hockey squad is back home next Wednesday, the 20th, to host Central Bucks West at 7:10 at Hatfield Ice for the Knight’s final regular season game and playoffs knocking on the door.