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Penalty kill dooms Salem

Thursday, January, 31 By David Willis
Staff writer

Salem coach Mark McGinn quickly picked out his team's weakness on the day.

"The penalty kill," he said. "We are usually pretty good. But we didn't do it today. They were pushing us pretty hard and we didn't handle their pressure very well on the power play."

Following a torrid start, the Blue Devils allowed a pair of power play goals in the first period and fell to Concord, 4-3 last night in an important Division 1 matchup.

After winning seven games in a row, the Blue Devils (11-4, 8-4 Division 1) are now 2-2 in their last four games. Concord (9-2 Division 1) has won four in a row.

"They executed on the power play and we didn't," said McGinn. "We cut down on penalties some, but it was the timeliness of the ones we took."

Salem committed five penalties for the game, but allowed goals 2:38 apart in the first to put the Crimson Tide ahead to stay. Concord committed seven penalties, six in the final two periods, but allowed only one power play goal.

"We took a few bad penalties early," said McGinn. "And that caused us to allow a few bad goals. It wasn't terrible, but we need to cut down."

Early on, it looked as if Salem would control the contest. The Blue Devils came out flying and fired eight shots on Crimson Tide goalie Matt Mosca before Concord even tested Salem's Robbie Liberatore.

But then the penalty bug hit and Concord jumped ahead 2-0. The Devils' Joel Vastl cut the lead to one when he stuffed in a shot that squirted through Mosca's pads with 8:41 left in the second. But Concord responded with two more goals before the end of the period.

After pressing through the first half of the third period, Mike Frahm finally broke through with 8:45 left in regulation when he took a pass form Derek Tomes and blasted it into the net to make the score 4-2.

Then, with 2:41 left in the contest brother Josh Frahm cut the lead to one when he slid a goal in off a pass from Ryan Desroches.

"In the third period we showed how we could play and come back," said McGinn. "And we had a chance to tie. But their goalie played really well."

Salem continued to pressure, but could not force another goal in. Desroches had a good chance late on a 2-on-1, but was robbed by Mosca.

The goal by Josh Frahm was his team-leading 14th of the season, while Mike Frahm's tally was the first of the sophomore's varsity career. Vastl has 10 goals, tied with Desroches for second on the team.