Defense the calling card for Lyman Hall’s Roberts
Though Jack Roberts’ achievements in one end of the ice showed up in box scores every night, his coach kept pointing toward what Lyman Hall boys hockey senior captain Roberts was doing in the defensive end of the ice.
“It’s how he bought into the system,” Dave Sagnella said. “Every team, I’d talk to the other coach, (and they’d say) ‘offense, offense, offense.’ He was very underrated in how good he was in our D-zone.”
A younger Roberts got time on his teams’ penalty kill.
“I brought that to high school,” he said. “I tried to be one of the best in plus/ minus.”
Sagnella said Roberts rated a plus-48 this season. Roberts also scored 83 points for the Trojans, a Division II conference finalist and CIAC semifinalist. He’s the GameTimeCT and New Haven Register player of the year.
“He was never the first one out of the zone,” Sagnella said, noting that some other big scorers might cherry-pick for a breakaway or flee the zone early for a scoring chance.
“He was a third defenseman. The wingers would get the puck out, and he joined the rush.”
And while putting up 189 points in four years, Sagnella said, he took only five penalties with a work ethic second-to-none.
Roberts said that watching film after his sophomore and junior years showed him that he wasn’t performing up to par in the defensive zone. He said he was slacking.
“I noticed I had to be a little more aggressive down low,” Roberts said.
Over four years, he built up his skating and speed after being one of the slower players in freshman year.
That didn’t limit him as a freshman: He played on the top line for a team that won the Division III championship alongside his brother, Kyle, who scored over 200 points in his career, and Matt Pettit.
“Those are two big-time hockey players. He was up to the task,” said Sagnella, who was an assistant coach that season before moving up to the top job the next season.
“Sophomore year, we made the leap up to Division II. He stepped up his game. Junior year, what was it, 10 games. We talked before this year: ‘you’re the man this year.’”
Roberts scored 38 goals in 25 games this season. He assisted on 45 others. He had a hand in over twothirds of the Trojans’ 121 goals. In their state-tournament opener against Guilford, Roberts scored seven points.
“His hockey IQ is off the chart,” Sagnella said. “You told him something once, and he learned from it.
“He made everyone he played with better.”
Roberts is still deciding on his future. He has a couple of colleges he’s considering, or he might play junior hockey.
He’s an attackman for Lyman Hall’s lacrosse team.
“They’re both pretty physical sports,” Roberts said. “Hockey, the aggressiveness you have to have really helps in lacrosse. Lacrosse, speed carries over into hockey. They help each other a lot.”
Lacrosse could be a college path for him, too; he was second-team All-SCC last year as a junior.
In hockey season, the Connecticut High School Hockey Association named him its state player of the year. He was first-team all-state, first-team allconference.
“Like I keep telling him,” Sagnella said, “he earned it.”