HOOKSETT - The Salem High School hockey team knocked off the rust from the holiday break by going into the reigning champs' house and shutting them out.

Cody Soucy scored the only goal of the game as the Blue Devils downed Pinkerton Academy of Derry 1-0 in Division I action at the Ice Den.

"We haven't beaten them in a couple of years," Salem coach Mark McGinn said. "It's always nice to take one from them. We worked hard tonight. I think we deserved it."

There were some tense moments down the stretch as Salem (3-1-1) clung to the lead, and goalie Nicholas Phair answered the call every time he was challenged.

The first was with 10:30 left in the third period when Devin Moore was set up on the left post and tried to stuff a shot in, only to get some of Phair's pads.

Then, with 5:40 left, Dominic Corsetto was set up beautifully in front on a pass from behind the net. Phair reacted quickly to the play and made the save.

"He's a good goalie," McGinn said. "He's been playing fantastic and hopefully he keeps it up for us."

The offensive by the Astros (2-3) went right down to the last second, literally.

With 1.3 seconds left a face off was whistled in the Salem zone. Pinkerton coach Casey Kesselring called a timeout and set up a play that manufactured a quality shot on net, which was stopped by Phair.

There was no scoring in the first period, and then Soucy got the Blue Devils on the board when he scored a power-play goal at 4:43 of the second period. Jake Pappalardo and Matthew Survilas were credited with assists on the goal.

Salem is now 3-0-1 since opening the season with a loss to Bishop Guertin of Nashua. McGinn said it just took a little while for his team to come together, and now it is starting to roll.

"We're a young team and the leadership is just starting to come together," McGinn said. "We're not full of studs. We've got hard-working kids and it took a couple of games to get their legs back."