According to senior captain Jonny Sorenson, Park’s 5-0 victory against Hopkins can be attributed to an early lead.

“I think we got to them early, and we scored goals quick in the first period, and that put the other team down. It got us rolling from there to show that we were the better team,” Sorenson said.

Goalie coach Jon Zitur said the players pushed harder than in past games for a majority of the playing time.

“I thought we had a pretty good effort for almost the whole game, so I think compared to some other ones, we had a pretty good game,” Zitur said.

Sorenson said to improve its ability to score goals, the team has increased its focus on shooting drills in and out of the rink.

“The big problem for our team this year is just that we’ve been missing the net a lot, and we haven’t been scoring,” Sorenson said. “So, personally and as a team, we just did a lot of shooting drills and worked on our shooting off the ice as well.

According to Sorenson, the team has united younger and older players by watching and driving to hockey games.

“We went to a couple high school games together, and we rode together, and that’s a good bonding experience just to get the young guys incorporated with the older guys,” Sorenson said.

According to Zitur, the team’s extensive time together will hopefully continue to bring them closer.

“We’re about halfway through (the season), and we spend a lot of time together, so I think we get a lot closer. Hopefully we keep coming together towards the end of the year,” Zitur said.

Zitur said over winter break, it’s beneficial for the players to continue practicing, especially with their increased resting time.

“They’re getting a little extra time sitting around the house, so it’s good to get them out on the ice and get them moving a little bit,” Zitur said.

According to Sorenson, the players need to work on keeping momentum throughout all three periods of the game and not allowing the opposing team to get ahead later in the game.

“We just got to be stronger at keeping our foot on the gas pedal. Once we get a couple goals, we start letting up on the other team and letting them come back in the game, and then we just have to tighten up things in the defensive zone,” Sorenson said.

Sorenson said this win will hopefully set a pattern of not letting the other team score near the end of the game.

“This game was a big upside for us as a turning point because if you look at our last games, we would get up early, and then other teams would come back and it would be a close game,” Sorenson said.

The next game is 7 p.m. Jan. 5 at Plymouth Ice Center against Wayzata.