ROSELLE — Regardless of the standings in their respective conferences, the annual Summit and Chatham High School boys hockey game brings out the best on both sides. Tuesday evening's meeting at Warinanco Park was no exception, as the 8-6-3 Hilltoppers and 10-7-2 Cougars skated to a hard-fought 3-3 tie.
Summit grabbed a 3-1 lead early in the third period, but Chatham responded with two goals in a five minute span. The tying goal came on a power play.
"We had them on the ropes, and then we gave them some momentum," Hilltopper head coach Keith Nixon said of the late penalty. "Still, we played a great game and it's a good tie nonetheless. We had our chances, we just couldn't find the back of the net."
Chatham head coach Harvey Cohen lauded his team's resilience and determination not only against Summit, but in many games this season.
"Over the last few weeks they've shown that they don't give up," he said of his players. "We made mistakes that caused us to be behind, but they don't quit. They keep working."
The Cougars outshot Summit 32-18 overall and 12-2 in the first period alone. Hilltopper junior goalie Jackson Stuckey made 29 saves and held Chatham scoreless in the second.
"He was on the puck most of the night," Nixon said. "I thought the second goal was a little soft, but he had to make a lot of stops. They were buzzing around our zone a lot and we blocked a lot of shots, stopped a lot of passes, and cleared a lot of rebounds."
With nine minutes to go in the first, Chatham took a 1-0 lead on a goal by sophomore Trip Burke. Senior Andrew Rhoads delivered a centering pass to Burke, who then spun around a defender to get a clear look at the net and scored.
Shortly after Burke's goal, the Cougars got a 5-on-3 power play courtesy of Summit penalties on junior Michael Tsiang (holding) and senior Jon Santina (high sticking). Chatham failed to score during that span, though, and subsequently lost the lead.
With Summit back to full strength, sophomore Mike Nyitray scored a remarkable game-tying goal. He went coast to coast, maneuvering around two defenders upon reaching Chatham's net and then getting the goal. He briefly lost control of the puck as he broke through the defense but kept it within reach to keep the opportunity alive.
There was little—if anything—Cougar senior goalie Andrew Mortensen could do to stop Nyitray.
"[Nyitray] has a lot of composure, and he's not thinking about the physical aspect of the game when he has the puck," Nixon said. "He's thinking: 'Where's the opportunity and what's the goaltender going to do?'"
Senior Trevor Silverstein gave Summit a 2-1 advantage with 13:53 left in the second, scoring the team's first goal by someone other than Nyitray since January 26th. Nixon was pleased with the way his offense responded after Nyitray did all the goal scoring in the team's 3-2 win against Cranford.
"Silverstein put it in, and (senior captain) Bobby Lawrence had some good chances," he said. "Tsiang had four good opportunities and played a real solid game. We had opportunities—we just need to keep working on that."
Fifteen seconds into the third period, Nyitray scored again. However, Chatham shut him down the rest of the way and got going offensively.
"Nyitray is a terrific player, and we were very fortunate to stop him," Cohen said.
Senior Steven Valeri cut the Cougars' deficit to one, and then Summit suffered back-to-back penalties on Nyitray and Lawrence. The Hilltoppers killed Nyitray's penalty, but were not so fortunate the next time around.
At 3:15, with Lawrence in the box, Cougar sophomore Alex Rauter got the game-tying, power play goal.
"We needed to bear down on the power play because we were trailing, and had squandered some earlier power plays that (Summit) killed," Cohen said.
In the final minute Chatham successfully worked to prevent Summit from scoring again, icing the puck twice.
The Cougars return to action on Thursday against Randolph High School at Mennen Arena at 6:15 p.m. Randolph is trying to break out of a two game losing streak.
