Buffalo Tournament - 11/7/26 to 11/8/26

After Frankenfest, the 15th Annual Bruce Giger Memorial Golf Outing and Group Night, the Dare Devils’ early-season gauntlet continued this weekend. One of the rites of passage for Dare Devils players is the annual pilgrimage to Buffalo for the Coach Mike Steffan Invitational Tournament. This year, 15 Dare Devils made the trek up to Buffalo, including rookie sensation Kieran Reid.

Players started trickling into town throughout the day on Friday, and Coach Bernard and the team treated those who arrived early to tickets to see the Buffalo Sabres take on the Columbus Blue Jackets at KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo. Much to the delight of the Dare Devils, the Sabres steamrolled their way to a 5-2 victory. It was a great way to start the weekend and another great opportunity for the Dare Devils to build camaraderie. After the game, the players headed back to the hotel to get some well-deserved shut-eye before their slate of three games over Saturday and Sunday.

Between games on Saturday, the tournament hosted the Dare Devils at the Consumer Pub at Park-Sahlen Field for a buffet-style lunch. It was a great lunch for the players and families and gave everyone the fuel they needed to get through the weekend.

While Coaches Bernard, Brendon, Ray, John and Mike were with the team in Buffalo, Coaches Myles, Eric, Steve Toledo, Terence, Doug and the Junior Coaches ran practice for the team back home at Codey Arena. It's a testament to our volunteers that we are able to travel to tournaments and still have enough coverage to run practice. Thank you, coaches!

Below is a summary of the game action. Check back after the tournament for the final recap!

Saturday, 11/7/26, 11:50am: Dare Devils vs. Albany Cougars

The Dare Devils opened the tournament with a tense battle against our rivals from New York’s capital, the Albany Cougars. Despite traveling the farthest of any team in attendance, the Dare Devils came out of the gates flying. As is typically the case in Buffalo, they were led by otherworldly goaltending from superstar Taylor Esposito, fresh off his co-MVP honors at Group Night. Taylor was steady all game, flashing his glove, making numerous pad saves and playing the puck beautifully out of the zone to act as an extra defenseman.

Patrick Law opened the scoring with a beautiful breakaway goal, quickly followed by a goal from Patrick Hung, assisted by Taylor Esposito. For many of our school-aged players, the week before the tournament was a school holiday because of the NJ teachers’ conference. Superstar Owen Silverstein spent the week in Mexico and took three flights to make it to Buffalo in time for the opening puck drop. You would never have guessed that based on his performance today. After Albany tied the game at two, Owen recorded a hat trick, sandwiched around a sweet Kieran O’Malley goal, to give the Dare Devils a comfortable lead.

However, the Cougars have a strong squad and kept the pressure on, and the game stayed close. Will Milazzo then received tic-tac-toe passes from Patrick Hung and Liam Smith to put the Dare Devils back in front. As mentioned above, this was Kieran Reid’s first away tournament with the team, and he made it a memorable opening game by chipping in a goal off a feed from this weekend’s de facto captain, Reese Citro. Connor Hung concluded the scoring as the Dare Devils earned the victory in the opener. In addition to the goal scoring, Shea Passikoff, James Cooney and Ayden Duran all played solid all-around games.

The Dare Devils making the box score were Owen Silverstein (3 goals), Patrick Hung (1 goal, 1 assist), Will Milazzo (1 goal, 1 assist), Taylor Esposito (2 assists), TJ Howard (2 assists), Patrick Law (1 goal), Kieran O’Malley (1 goal), Kieran Reid (1 goal), Connor Hung (1 goal), Liam Smith (1 assist), Reese Citro (1 assist) and Aaron Quintana (1 assist).

Saturday, 11/7/26, 6:00pm: Dare Devils vs. Steel City Icebergs

The Dare Devils were back in action for their second game of the tournament on Saturday evening, taking on the talented Steel City Icebergs from Pittsburgh, PA. After the long drive and an afternoon hanging out at the hotel pool, the Dare Devils were a bit lethargic to start the game. Steel City only had seven skaters, so Patrick Hung, Connor Hung and Aaron Quintana showed great sportsmanship by donning black jerseys and playing with the Icebergs. This trio is three of our best players, so they made the game much more challenging than it would have been otherwise.

Steel City was jumping to start the game and quickly took a three-goal lead before the Dare Devils found their bearings. Similar to this morning’s game, Patrick Law got the Dare Devils off the schneid to open the scoring for NJ. Connor Hung scored for Steel City to increase their lead, but Shea Passikoff answered for the Dare Devils with two gritty goals, both of which required fighting off several stick checks from the Icebergs.

The game was back and forth after that, but the Dare Devils were able to claw their way back with goals from Will Milazzo, Patrick Law and TJ Howard, with Howard’s goal coming off beautiful assists from Kieran O’Malley and Reese Citro. In fact, Citro, acting as the de facto captain, caught the passing bug and led the team with five assists on the day.

Connor and Patrick Hung then scored two more goals each for Steel City, but Citro set up Owen Silverstein for two goals to tie the score. Steel City went up by another goal, but Citro was at it again, this time setting up James Cooney to tie it once more. That goal lit a fire under Cooney, who was strong on pucks the rest of the game and scored the game winner in the final minutes off another assist from Citro. Patrick Law added an insurance goal, and the Dare Devils came out victorious.

The star of the game for the Dare Devils was Taylor Esposito. He made numerous point-blank saves against a talented Steel City team and gave the Dare Devils the breathing room they needed to fight for the victory.

The Dare Devils making the box score were Reese Citro (5 assists), Patrick Law (3 goals, 1 assist), TJ Howard (1 goal, 3 assists), Kieran O’Malley (3 assists), Shea Passikoff (2 goals), Owen Silverstein (2 goals), James Cooney (2 goals), Will Milazzo (1 goal), Ayden Duran (1 assist), Liam Smith (1 assist) and Kieran Reid (1 assist).

Playing for Steel City, Connor Hung finished with 3 goals and 1 assist, and Patrick Hung finished with 2 goals and 2 assists. Aaron Quintana also played a strong game for the Icebergs.