MARBLEHEAD — With new guidelines to follow this season, hockey is looking a lot different and that’s no different for the Marblehead boys hockey team. But despite the tweaks, the product on the ice hasn’t skipped a beat.
“We’ve had a couple of weeks on the ice and it’s going well,” Magicians coach Chris Wells, entering his third season at the helm, said. “The changes really have more to do with entering the rink and having the team showing up dressed. That’s changed, but when we actually get on the ice it isn’t that much different.
“The kids have to wear masks but they’ve adapted to that pretty fast,” Wells said. “They all have good attitudes and are happy to be out there. Now hopefully we can get some games going soon.”
After a 14-3-4 season and a Northeastern Conference North title, Marblehead fittingly graduated plenty of talent from last season — including Zach Piersol, Collin Hart and star goaltender Peter Santeusanio, who were all Item All-Stars.
Thankfully the Magicians have plenty of players with experience, and they’ll be looking for them to step up this season and continue that success.
“Obviously, one of our biggest voids is we lost a great, gifted goaltender in Peter,” Wells said. “But our goalies have been looking good in practice. Nick Peters has been our backup in net for two years and we’re looking for him to step up now.
“Honestly, we had a really good freshman class last year and they got a lot of varsity experience under their belts,” Wells said. “They’ve looked good coming back this year and our sophomores from last year have really seemed to make that jump into bigger, stronger juniors.”
Marblehead also has a strong core group of seniors to help lead the way, starting up front with Will Shull.
“Will is coming into his senior year as captain for us and is one the best players overall in our league,” said Wells.
Seniors J.T. Monahan and Charlie Titus will help sure things up on the defensive end, while junior Aidan Jalbert hopes to continue to improve this season.
“J.T. and Charlie are two of our best defenseman,” Shull said. “And Aidan has really stepped up his game and looks stronger out there.”
Junior Eli Feingold and sophomores Carter Laramie, Connor Jalbert and Christopher Locke will also provide a spark on the offensive end.
“We have a pretty solid team coming back,” Wells said. “We did lose a lot of seniors but looking at the good core we have coming up, any worries went away pretty quickly. We’re not worried about where we are.”
Despite the absence of a state tournament this year, Marblehead won’t have to change its core goals for the season too much. The Magicians will hope to remain at the top of the NEC North once again after finishing undefeated (10-0-2) in conference games last year.
“I know there’s technically not any standings this season,” Wells said. “But the kids will always be keeping an eye on who’s beating who in the conference. With this year, we don’t know much about a lot of teams in terms of scouting but in general the conference games are pretty tough. Overall, we want to win the NEC again. We want to win every game we play.”
Marblehead is currently scheduled to start its season on Jan. 17 (2:40) against Danvers at Paul Cronin Rink in Revere.
