Eisenhower goalie Sal Carabelli carries a big stick but he doesn’t speak softly.

Carabelli is constantly communicating with his teammates on the ice and it’s a key factor in Eisenhower’s tight defensive play this season. The Eagles recorded their third shutout in four games Monday with a 5-0 win against Clarkston in a Macomb Area Conference Showcase contest at Mount Clemens Ice Arena.

“The defense, when they’re listening to their goalie talking to them, the better they’re going to be,” said Eisenhower coach Bob Hall. “It’s communication, knowing where to go, when to step up, when to gap up, when to move pucks.  A lot of that is just communication on the ice because players don’t see everything that’s going on. They have to depend on the other guys.”

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Carabelli, who earned his second shutout of the season, relishes that role.

“Communication is everything in the game of hockey,” he said. “Just telling the boys to get pucks deep and stuff like that, who they need to move it to, who’s open. When they have their backs to the play and I can see their (defense) partner is open, I’ll yell, ‘partner.’ They know to trust me. I’ll yell when we’re in the offensive zone, too. They can hear me all the way down there.”

Hall said the goaltending is a big reason why Eisenhower is unbeaten in MAC Red play.

‘We’re anchored by Sal Carabelli but Trevor Rankin and Alex Guzdziol are solid,” he said. “I feel confident putting any of the goalies in the net. And they’re competitive.”

Carabelli needed to be sharp in goal against the Wolves because Eisenhower was nursing a 1-0 lead through two periods. Jaden Blevens’ power-play at 7:38 of the first period was the only goal of the game until Sam Militello scored with a man advantage at 1:49 of the third period.

Then the floodgates opened. Cole Weber, Param Vyas and Matthew Pellegrino added goals for the Eagles before the third period reached the five-minute mark.

Carabelli said that Militello’s goal took a huge weight off his shoulders.

“It felt great,” Carabelli said. “You could probably tell from my reaction I was really happy when we got that second one. Then we just kept rolling.”

Hall said that it wasn’t any fiery speech during the second intermission that sparked Eisenhower.

“It’s just a matter of our guys doing the little things right,” he said. “It’s things we worked on in practice. When you see the things you work on in practice come out in the game the result is good.”

Clarkston coach Karl Dalek was baffled by the Eisenhower eruption in the third period that ended the Wolves’ four-game winning streak.

“Early on, they kind of jumped on us, but after the middle of the first period and through the second I thought we played better,” he said. “In my opinion, I thought it was 60-40. Our shots were from tough angles because they played good position and their goalie was very good.”

Dalek felt the slow start was a result of limited practice last week because of finals.

“But once we turned it around middle of the first period, I thought, all right, they’re untracked, they’ve got it,” he said. “I had no issues coming into the third period. We were running four lines, they were running two and a third once in a while. I thought we’d have the extra juice. Mentally, I think they lost it. That happens sometimes.”

Bryce Chomiak had two assists for the Eagles and Kevin Gialloreti, Jack Hammond, Jason Geiger, Vyas and Justin Heileg added one each.

Eisenhower improved  to 8-7 overall. Clarkston slipped to 10-6.