It’s a different year for the Northampton hockey team in the Lehigh Valley Scholastic Hockey League this year.

Over the past four years, the Konkrete Kids have taken the top spot in the league, winning the championship in three of those years. They replaced Parkland as the league’s perennial power.

This season, however, the scene has shifted.

The Kids began play this week with an overall 3-2-2 record and are sitting in third place behind the Bethlehem/Nazareth entry (8-0-1) and Phillipsburg’s Saints (3-1-3).

Veteran head coach Brian Ruff is confident his club can make a postseason run.

“We’re not great, but we’re OK,” offered Ruff. “We have a different group of kids. We lost a lot scoring and our goalie (Bailen Smargiassi) who was there for the last few years and received an appointment to the Naval Academy.”

Ruff stated his club is senior-heavy with defensemen, and it is relatively young up front. It has created a transition period for them.

“We have five defensemen and four of them are seniors,” added Ruff. “Our main scorers are sophomores.

“It’s a different year in many ways. Our kids took a while to get going, but we can start to see them coming around.”

Senior Nick Kotsch is the team’s leading scorer with six goals and seven assists for 13 points. Sophomores Ian Braun (3-7-10) and Derek Raudabaugh (2-4-6) have been steady contributors.

Ashtyn Dremock has been one of three goalies in the nets for the Kids this season.

Dremock has a 2-2-1 record with a 4.12 goals against average (GAA) and an .865 save percentage in five games. Austin Wolfe has a 0-0-1 mark with a 3.00 GAA and a .930 save percentage. Tye Tomasic has a 1-0-0 slate with a 0.00 GAA and a 1.000 save percentage.

Ruff stated his team has challenging games ahead against Bethlehem/Nazareth and Southern Lehigh, and they will finish the regular season against Parkland in a limited 10-game regular season due to the lack of rinks in the area.

The Kids lost their previous meetings with Bethlehem/Nazareth and Southern Lehigh this season by identical 6-2 scores. Their initial meeting with Parkland was postponed.

He has been pleased with the progress of the program’s junior varsity and middle school teams, both of whom are in first place in their respective divisions. The Kids’ youth team is in second place.

Ruff is aware of the transition period, but he is staying confident about his team’s prospects in the coming weeks.

“Everything goes in a cycle,” reflected Ruff. “We knew this would be a different year.

“But we’re confident we can make some noise. We have to treat each game as a playoff game, and we’ll keep working.”