Nearly 10 months ago, Burrell Hockey lost 5-1 in the Division 2 Penguins Cup Championship, fueling coach Drew Burkett to get an early start for the next season.
“Yeah, after that championship game, I wanted to get started a lot earlier,” Burkett said.
“So we had our tryouts a little bit earlier, and we got straight into team walkthroughs, team workouts and practices and stuff like that. … Tried to get our new players caught up on our systems as early as possible, figure out some lines.”
But to start this season, things looked grim for Burrell.
The Buccaneers (9-4-2) had to forfeit their first two games of the season after violating the PIHL’s rules on player elevation. In each of those two games, Burrell raised seven players to the varsity level when the rules allow only six per game. In addition to the forfeitures, Burkett was suspended for the next four games.
“This is the first year that we’ve had a JV and a varsity … I’ll say that we weren’t ready for all the rules like that,” Burkett said.
But rather than letting their offseason work go to waste, the Buccaneers rallied and won their next three games, including a 4-3 victory in a rematch of last year’s Penguins Cup final against Morgantown.
“Morgantown is always a team you love to beat,” Burkett said. “So we definitely had that one marked on our calendar, and it proved a lot to our team that they were able to win that game without a head coach. We were missing a couple guys for that one, too.”
Fortunately, Burrell’s pair of all-star forwards, Dante Taliani (seven goals) and Jared Wall (10 goals and 14 assists), suited up for that game. Taliani had a power-play goal that started to erase Burrell’s 2-0 deficit. Then, Wall found Brody Ziegler for the winning goal with two-and-a-half minutes left in the game.
“Their biggest thing is consistency,” Burkett said of the two forwards. “I think that’s what really gets you to be an all-star in this league: if you can go out and do the same thing every night where you’re getting goals and assists and supporting your team and winning games. They’re just a huge part of the game every time we’re playing.”
Burkett also credits his team’s defense, led by all-stars Madilynne George and Adam Scheftic, for its ability to stay in games like the one against Morgantown.
“Our goalies and defense have been keeping us in a lot of games that we maybe shouldn’t have won,” Burkett said. “They’ve held it down in the defensive zone and played really well.”
George is a part of a three-goalie rotation that has allowed 26 regulation goals on 263 on-target attempts. She leads the team in save percentage (.935), which is seventh in the PIHL. Scheftic, meanwhile, spearheads the defense that has allowed the fifth-fewest shots on goal.
However, Burrell’s three-game winning streak following Burkett’s suspension came to an end with a 4-3 overtime loss to Neshannock.
Then, a month after Burkett was reinstated, the Bucs dropped another overtime game, this time to Ringgold. With Neshannock holding a three-point lead over second-place Burrell and third-place Ringgold, Burkett knows the importance of his team’s last five games, four of which are divisional, including rematches against Neshannock and Ringgold.
“It’s a pretty close race from the one to the three spot in our division,” Burkett said. “So if we can get enough wins to get up to that one and two — I think if we beat Ringgold and Neshannock — that should put us in a decent spot to get maybe an easier first game of playoffs, get our feet under us, introduce our new guys to how playoff hockey is in the league and then take off from there. I fully believe that our team is capable of winning the Pens Cup.”