PEABODY — The Peabody boys hockey team took it on the chin Saturday in its season opener at McVann O’Keefe Rink, losing to Northeastern Conference rival Danvers, 7-0.
The Falcons took advantage of some early jitters and costly turnovers, and jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first three minutes of the game.Then, the Falcons stretched the lead to 3-0 two minutes later.
But Peabody regrouped, and had a chance to get back in the game with a 5-on-3 advantage at the tail end of the first period that spilled into the second for another 20 seconds, but was unable to break through.
After returning to full-pstrength, the Falcons needed less than 30 seconds to score two goals in less than a minute to put the game out of reach.
Peabody also failed to cash in on a second 2-man up opportunity later in the game.
“We were never really in the game and they were all over us from the start,” said Peabody coach Mark Leonard. “We had a couple of early turnovers so they got up 2-0 early and then we are on our heels. We didn’t give up, but we just made a lot of mistakes and we pretty much came as advertised as a young, inexperienced team that is going to make a lot of mistakes, but I was happy we didn’t give up once we got down 5-0 so early.”
Danvers spread the scoring around with six players netting goals and four more notching assists.
Junior forward Jared Msciz opened the scoring at the 2:19 mark of the first period, then captain Thomas Mento (2 goals, assist) followed with another goal 31 seconds later to double the Falcons’ lead to 2-0. Freshman forward Tyler Robinson made it 3-0 at the 5:09 mark.
Peabody’s best chance to right the ship came with 1:45 left in the period when Danvers went a man down. Thirteen seconds later, another Falcons’ penalty gave Peabody a 5-on-3, but the Tanners could not get anything going.
Danvers killed off both penalties, then quickly bumped the lead to 5-0 on goals by senior defenseman Colin Desmond and junior forward Jack Thibodeau.
Peabody bounced back and stepped up its offense on the next couple of shifts, but Danvers answered with a goal by Mento on a 2-on-1 break with about six minutes left in the period.
“We had some good shifts and probably should have scored some goals as we had our chances once we started to play the body a little,” said Leonard. “We had a couple of breakaways and then a couple of wide shots when we couldn’t hit the net or didn’t get the shots off.”
One of Peabody’s best chances came late in the second period when junior forward Connor McCarron, a forward, broke in alone on senior goalie Yegor Bublik, but his shot was just wide. McCarron had another breakaway midway with about five minutes left in the third period, but again could not put the puck on net.
With two minutes left to play, Danvers was flagged for elbowing and hooking within a 15 second span, allowing the Tanners to close out the game with a 2-man edge. Their best chance came off the stick of sophomore defenseman Mike Zarro, who blasted a shot from the right point that was deflected by a Danvers defenseman.
“As the game went on, we started to make some plays so there were definitely some things to be positive and we will try to build off those things,” said Leonard. “It’s not the greatest start, but all in all it wasn’t the worst day either. We got a whole week’s worth of practice out of, that’s for sure, but it was pretty much what I expected as I knew with our lack of experience, there would be nerves and mistakes especially against a very good team like Danvers, who has been picked by everybody to win the league.”
Leonard had high praise for sophomore defenseman James Guiry and good things to say about a few of Guiry’s teammates.
“I thought he was the best player on the ice for us today,” said Leonard. “He’s a big strong kid who just works hard all the time, and he did today. Senior Zach DeFreitas had a good game on defense I thought and junior Dante Vargas in his varsity game played really well. He blocked a couple of hard shots and that takes guts to do that. “
Leonard also singled out the defensive performance of sophomore Nick Ricci and also said sophomore forward Michael Zarro played well.
Peabody’s next game is at Endicott College against NEC rival Beverly Wednesday night at 7:30.
“They are a tough team and are 2-0 and have several really good players,” said Leonard.
