Two minutes into overtime of Southern Maine’s game against Keene State at the USM Ice Arena, Johnny Hagan took a pass at center ice and started a two-on-one break. He picked out Owen Drummey, who carried it into the zone and then made a nice feed back to Hagan to bury the game-winner.

It was the first overtime goal in the former Canton star’s college career and extended his career-high point streak to six games. Just as important, it was Southern Maine’s fourth win in the last five games and kept the Huskies in third place in the LEC (just behind perennial powers Babson and Norwich).

“That was fun,” Hagan said in a phone call a few days after the win. “It was a great setup by Owen.” He added with a laugh, “I actually had a chance to end the game with 20 seconds left in regulation and just completely fanned on a puck, so it was good to get that one in OT.”

Hagan is in the midst of his best season with the Huskies. While his point streak ended the next game (a 3-0 win over Western Connecticut State), he added an assist in last weekend’s loss to nationally ranked Babson and now has five goals and nine helpers this season. He sits fourth on the team in points and tied for fourth in goals.

“I try not to harp on it too much,” Hagan explained. “It’s a long season, every game in this league matters, every weekend is the most important weekend of the year.”

After missing all but two games of his freshman season with a shoulder injury that he sustained during his year in juniors, Hagan played 14 times as a sophomore and 24 times last year, spending time both at forward and on the blue line. This year, he’s played in all 19 of Southern Maine’s games and seems more comfortable with his role and his game.

“This summer, it was kind of realizing that it’s all coming to an end and just wanted to leave it all out there and not really have any regrets,” Hagan said when asked about any changes he made coming into his senior year. “Mainly just simplifying, trying to get back to playing with confidence and just wanting to help the team in any way that I can.”

Confidence is a word that came up several times when Hagan discussed the growth of his game. As he readily admitted, during his impressive run at Canton High (both in hockey and football), Hagan never seemed to lack self-belief. College hockey is different, faster, and for the first time he’s had to work to rebuild his confidence.

“It’s something I never really thought about or had to deal with earlier in my career,” he said. “Coming into the later stages of school and everything like that, time and space and everything just shrinks. How to process things out there and have an idea of what you’re going to do before you get the puck.”

“I didn’t really understand earlier on how important [confidence] is but it really makes all the difference.”

The path to college hockey is rarely straightforward. For Hagan, as with most kids in town, it started with Canton Youth Hockey. In high school, Hagan became a star both on the gridiron and the rink. He helped the football team win back-to-back Davenport division titles, their first league championships since 1990, and make a run to the Div. 5 South title game.

Hagan had opportunities to jump to prep school hockey programs but football was one of the reasons he stuck around.

“I knew we were going to have some good teams those two years and I really just wanted to play football with my friends,” he explained. “I definitely wanted to stay and see that through.”

The hockey team benefited from that, as the program put together an incredible, undefeated season in 2019 (“Team of the Decade,” Hagan quickly pointed out) and then went back to the state title game again the following season only to have the pandemic cancel the final and the Bulldogs be named co-champs with Lincoln-Sudbury.

“Every single day, it was so much fun coming to the rink,” Hagan said about the undefeated season. “I remember we had a really good summer, worked really hard in the weight room, skated a lot, and we did everything together, off the ice things like that. It was so much fun.”

Hagan earned this site’s Player of the Year as a senior after he scored 18 goals (including four in the D2 South final) and dished out 31 assists. He had 66 goals and 99 assists over his career, lost only one league game in four seasons, and finished with a 46-1-4 overall record in his final two years at Canton.

Asked if he still carried some of what he learned at Canton with him six years later, he replied, “Coach Shuman taught me a lot. He’s ahead of his time. Even after Canton, different coaches would implement things in practice and games and it would take some guys a few days to learn it and get it down, when Coach Shuman was doing those kind of things with us at Canton a couple years before.”

Following high school, Hagan headed to Tilton School for a post-grad season with one of the only prep school leagues in the country that was able to play during the pandemic. Those dozen or so games at Tilton led to an opportunity to spend the next year with Boston Advantage and from there he got his chance at Southern Maine.

It was a long road to college hockey and one that took a turn after injury kept him out as a freshman, but Hagan is more comfortable, more experienced, and seeing his hard work pay off with results on the ice.

“You just have to put your head down and work and figure out a way to get through,” Hagan said. “It really felt like a brand new year, clean slate, what we put into it is what we’re going to get out of it. Coming in this year, being comfortable and obviously learning and gelling with the new guys has been awesome.”

The Huskies come into the weekend’s games with league power Norwich and Vermont State – Castleton at 10-8-1. It already matches the most wins the program has had in Hagan’s four years and the Huskies look capable of competing with even the league’s best.

“I’m fired up,” Hagan said. “I think we can beat anyone. We just need to focus on ourselves and what we’re doing and we should be alright.”

“A league championship is the goal right now. We’ve got about a month and change left and then we can have some fun.”