Unbeaten Montour heading north fast in PIHL standings

Clay Shell had always been a defensive-minded guy.

He was a defenseman in his playing days and, two years ago when Montour was previously in Class 1A, the Spartans allowed the third-fewest goals in the West Division and made it all the way from a play-in game to the Penguins Cup semifinals.

“The last two years we’ve played very conservative,” Shell said. “Defensemen weren’t allowed to pinch, we ran a 1-2-2 forecheck just so we always had guys back.”

Times have changed at Montour.

Following a dismal 2017-18 season in Class 2A in which the team finished 4-15-0 and missed the playoffs by 10 points, the Spartans (12-0-0) are back in Class 1A with a completely offense-first attacking philosophy that has them as the only undefeated team remaining in the classification and with a postseason berth in the bag.

“We have a very good top six as far as their shots go and they’re playing very fast hockey games,” Shell said. “After a few games we decided that we were just faster and so we adapted.”

And how. Through 12 games, Montour has scored a league-leading 113 goals, an average of 9.42 a game. Last season, the Spartans mustered only 54 goals when they were completely outgunned in Class 2A and have already eclipsed their 2016-17 Class 1A total of 99 goals in 18 regular-season matchups and are averaging 3.9 more goals per game.

Senior forwards Rich Froelich and Michael Felsing were both selected to play in the PIHL Class 1A All-Star Game on Jan. 27 at Southpointe thanks to their outstanding production. Froelich leads the classification in assists and is second in points (20 goals, 27 assists, 47 points) behind Nicholas Frantz of Meadville (30-19-49), while Felsing is third in goals (21) and points (40).

“That all comes from out back-checking because we always have a guy who’s tracking the puck and trying to create a turnover or force the other team into a bad decision,” Shell said. “When we get the puck, we always want to ‘go north fast’ and we preach ‘north fast’ to them. Those are words that we use all the time.”

One of the problems with the ‘north fast’ philosophy is that there are times when the puck can head south even faster on odd-man breaks and counterattacks. Junior goaltender Zachary O’Malley is 80-0 but his 2.75 goals-against average and .876 save percentage have taken a hit because of the number of odd-man chances he faces.

“He is all about the team and winning. We joke that he hasn’t been able to get a shutout yet but he doesn’t care because he’ll take the ‘W’ over the other things,” Shell said. “He is like [former Edmonton goaltender] Grant Fuhr. He does not care what his personal stats are as long as we win.”

Hampton

For most of the season, Hampton has been digging itself out of a hole.

Now the Talbots have found their way to daylight and are beginning to look like a factor when the Class 2A playoffs open in a few weeks.

On Monday, Hampton pulled out a 7-4 victory against Mars, the secondplace team in the Northwest Division, for only its second win this season against a team that is currently over .500. The other was a 6-4 decision against Southeast Division-leading Latrobe.

With the win, the Talbots (7-6-1) are now over .500 for the first time since winning their season opener against Shaler and, with the team’s highpowered offense, they could make things interesting down the stretch.

Hampton has the leading scorer in the classification in forward Michael Orban, who has 13 goals, a league-leading 22 assists and 35 points. Forward Justin Adamski is third in scoring with 14 goals and 32 points.

One area in which the team must improve, however, is goals allowed. Hampton has given up 53 goals this season; the fourth worst of the 10 teams that currently hold down postseason spots.

Butler

Butler has been very quiet for much of the year, but the Golden Tornado is beginning to make some serious noise.

After an overtime win against Mt. Lebanon on Monday, Butler (5-5-2) has now won three in a row and four of its past five to move to .500 for the first time this season. Their current streak has also allowed the Golden Tornado to move up to a tie with Central Catholic (5-6-2) for fifth place in the standings with a game-in-hand on the Vikings.

They have played one fewer game than fourth-place Bethel Park (7-4-0), but have six games remaining to slip past the Black Hawks to get a home game in the opening round of the playoffs.