SALEM — The Peabody boys hockey team skated off the ice after a scoreless first period last night with one mission — get more shots on net.
Luckily, a 21-2 second period shot differential in favor of the Tanners ultimately produced a 5-1 victory over host Salem yesterday at the Rockett Arena.
"I think we just capitalized on our chances," said Peabody head coach Mark Leonard, whose team (now 6-6-1) earned its first win in nearly two weeks. "We had a lot of (shots) in the first, but their goalie (sophomore Brett Harring) made some great saves. We started going to the net a little better in the second and just kept shooting."
Captain Mike Chiappini got things rolling for Peabody with a quick turnaround shot from the hash marks 16 seconds into the second period on a feed from Matt McIsaac. In his second game back from injury, McIsaac was effective on the Tanners' power play unit and got a goal of his own in the third period.
Chiappini lit the lamp again to make it 2-0 in the second after Mike Vadala had the initial shot on goal. Harring was unable to control the rebound for the Witches (1-13) and Chiappini was there on a follow-up opportunity for his second score of the night.
"He's a great player — the player of the game for us," said Leonard of Chiappini.
"We gave him the game puck. He works so hard and has tremendous hands and good vision. In a big rink like this, it's a lot of space for him. I thought he was the best player on the ice."
The next three Peabody goals, including McIsaac's, all came from second chance opportunities.
The Tanners were relentless when it came to forechecking and it paid off. Peabody created traffic in front of Harring and threw 44 shots on the Salem netminder.
"We got a lot of our goals off a rebounds and going hard to the net," added Leonard. "We knew seeing them play that their goalie was excellent and we'd have to go in and get some second chance opportunities, because we probably wouldn't beat him on the first shot. We did a better job applying pressure on him in the second and third periods."
Peabody's Joe Powers was three seconds away from what would have been his first shutout of the season before the Witches scored. Salem captain Paul DiMarino controlled the puck down low on the left corner boards as the final seconds dwindled down and shoveled a pass to Spencer Bergholtz, who did his best to create some space in the lane. It looked as though Bergholtz was going to pass it back to the defenseman, but instead sent one past Powers just before the buzzer was to go off.
Aside from the one goal, Salem didn't gain much entry into their offensive zone thanks to a shutdown Peabody defense. Nick Salalayko and Ryan McManus limited many of the Witches' scoring opportunities with their long reach and bodychecks.
"I think it's a matter of numbers," Salem head coach Brian Addesa said of his team's lack of scoring opportunities. "Peabody has more bodies and more guys that play; we're not at that level.
"Their guys can keep playing and keep skating, but our guys are going to have to work sometimes twice as hard to keep up. As the game goes on we get tired, and the other team is still rolling three lines.
"This is pretty typical for us; this is who we are," added Addesa. "We're always going to battling the teams from the (Northeastern Conference) upper division."
