Calumet forward Erik Loukus fires shot during a 50th annual John MacInnes Holiday Hockey Classic game against Livonia Stevenson Saturday at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — The Calumet Copper Kings got three goals from defensemen, one in each period, to earn a 3-1 win Saturday over the Livonia Stevenson Spartans in the 50th annual John MacInnes Holiday Hockey Classic at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton.

The Spartans came into the game as the defending MacInnes Classic champions, but the Copper Kings did what they needed to do to get the win.

“It was a game went about as the way I thought,” said Copper Kings coach Dan Giachino. “It was going to be a one-goal type of a game, one way or the other. Two good teams, and two what I feel like are two deep teams. I didn’t feel like a huge advantage throughout the lineup either way.

“I thought this was going to be pretty even hockey. So, (I) thought we played well when we needed to, especially in the third period. I thought we did a nice job in the forecheck, and really kind of kept them down in check for most of the period.”

The Copper Kings came into the third period up 2-1, and while they gave up eight shots, none of them were particularly difficult for junior goaltender Beau Jukuri, who made 25 saves to earn the win and help Calumet improve to 7-3-1 overall this season.

“I thought both teams played really (well), shots, there were about 25 apiece, somewhere around there, and quite a few power play shots both ways,” Giachino said. “We gave up the one breakaway in the first period, kind of on a fumbled puck, but really didn’t give up a lot of odd-man rushes throughout the game.

“I thought we did a nice job defensively of kind of keeping them to a minimum.”

The breakaway Giachino referred to happened 8:54 in when Nathan Maliszewski skated in alone, deked to his backhand, but could not solve Jukuri.

Calumet took the lead 6:05 into the game when senior defenseman Dylan Crouch fired a wrist shot through traffic from the left point that eluded Spartans goaltender Drew Allen.

Senior defenseman Drake Niemela made it 2-0 when the Copper Kings took advantage of a turnover 4:07 into the second. Senior forward Nathan Londo snatched up the puck on the turnover and fed it over to Niemela for the one-timer.

Getting goals from defenseman was a bonus for Calumet, who continues to look for more secondary scoring.

“That’s been what we’ve been doing all year,” Giachino said. “Our top line’s been playing well, but we’re not one of those teams where the top line is scoring all the goals for a team. We’ve got really good depth, and our secondary scoring has been really coming through for us this first half of the year. So, they’re going to do it again tonight.”

The Spartans cut the lead in half with a power play goal at 9:09 from Dawson Wallis.

Giachino lamented the fact that the Spartans scored one of their advantages, but the Copper Kings could not in four tries.

“They get a power play goal in the second period, and we were 0-for-3, 0-for-4, whatever it was here tonight,” he said. “They did a really nice job. I feel like (they attacked) on the top of our power play, and we just struggled to get the puck. We were really trying to get the guys to get the puck in down low and use our numbers advantage down there, but they did a real nice job of denying that on us. Something we haven’t really seen a lot was that high pressure, when high pressure is high in-the-zone pressure. We haven’t seen much of that this year of teams throwing that at us. So, (that) kind of threw us off, I think, a little bit.”

Senior defenseman Robert Loukus capped the scoring with 34 seconds left when Niemela forced a turnover and got the puck to Loukus as he jumped out of the defensive zone. Loukus skated in and scored into the empty net.

“It’s been going really well,” said Giachino. “We’re improving in areas that I thought we really needed to improve on, from the first couple weeks of the season, and in terms of our defensive structure, doing some things. I think it’s going well so far. We’ve got to keep improving, keep getting better.”

Sunday game canceled

The Copper Kings were scheduled to face the Capital City Capitals Sunday, but pending bad weather led to cancellation of the contest so that the Capitals could get back downstate before the weather turned poor.

Up next

The Copper Kings are back in action Tuesday when they face Houghton at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton at 4 p.m.