It was the 55th Annual Flood Marr Hockey Tournament at Milton Academy featuring some of the best matchups in prep hockey. We will do a single game report on the game of the day; the NE Prep Finals Rematch game between KUA and Salisbury, but below will talk about each team and what stood out in today’s games.
History
The Flood Marr Tournament was started in 1965 and had 4 teams (Nobles, Milton, Kent and Westminster). They expanded to 8 in 1967 adding Choate, Salisbury, Deerfield and Hill School. 55 years later 5 of those original 8 teams are still playing in the tournament with the addition of Andover (29th year), Hotchkiss (34th year and Kimball Union (28th year).
Richard Flood, known by most as Floodo, was the founder of this tournament along with his Williams College teammate Dick Marr. This fall Floodo passed away following a long illness. One of the most beloved and well respected personalities in New England Prep School, he spent 43 years as a teacher, coach and advisor at Nobles before moving to Salisbury where he became the Head of School. This will be the first Flood Marr Tournament that Floodo will not be around for and after Day #1 his two former schools Nobles and Salisbury are undefeated and could end up playing the Championship.
The tournament has been pretty spread out over the past two years with every team getting a championship except for Andover and Milton. The leading team is Salisbury with 6 championships in the past 20 years followed by Deerfield (4), Hotchkiss (3), Westminster (3), Nobles & Greenough (2) and Kimball Union (2).
Last year’s MVP was Lucas Mercuri, a UVM commit out of Quebec who returned to the tournament this year for Salisbury and scored the game winning goal against KUA to win their first round game. Previous Flood-Marr Tournament MVP’s include: David Quinn ’83 (NYR Head Coach), Marty Reasoner (Boston College/NHL) and Ben Lovejoy (Dartmouth/NHL).
Nobles & Greenough (6-0 win vs. Andover)
Nobles came out and scored four goals in the first five minutes of the game including a hat trick from senior forward Casey Severo. After the early surge the game was actually fairly even with Nobles scoring two more over the next two periods to win 6-0. The Nobles Bulldogs may not have the depth of the ranked teams, but they have a talented top line, balance on their blue line with a mix of size and skill and a goaltender who can steal a game. Senior netminder Marc Smith posted a shutout kicking out 26 saves and looked calm, cool and collected all throughout.
The Bulldogs have 10 seniors and many of them are seasoned prep veterans who have taken a step forward in their games including Colby Bailey, John Cronin, Pierce Kenney, Robert Lapsley, Marc Smith and Casey Severo to go with some talented underclassmen like Aidan Lyons and Bennett MacDonald. They’ll play twice tomorrow; first against Hotchkiss in the morning game and then again at 5pm against Westminster.
Milton Academy (0-2 loss vs. Deerfield; 2-5 loss vs. KUA)
Not a great opening day for Milton who went winless in their first two games but actually didn’t play poorly. The strength of their team is on the blue line including 3 tall, athletic defenders in Matt Danzinger, Will van der Veen and Max Cassella. They are complimented by a pair of younger defenders in Chris Romaine and Ethan Mistry; Mistry comes off the talented Don Mills Flyers who won the OHL Cup last season and was drafted by Niagara in the OHL.
Up front Milton was led by sophomore David Chen, Jeffrey Lee and Tyler Crist but overall don’t have a ton of goal scorers or depth. Could have just been an off day for the Mustangs but from what we saw they don’t appear to have guys who can get to the net and finish. To their credit the team works hard and they are well-coached and disciplined but Deerfield was bigger and stronger and KUA was a lot deeper and more talented. They’ll have face Salisbury tomorrow at 1.
Phillips Andover (0-6 loss vs. Nobles & Greenough)
While Andover had a tough start to the weekend allowing 4 goals against in the opening 5 minutes of their game; they settled down after that and played a pretty even game despite the score being out of hand. Nobles was the better team and deserved to win but it wasn’t a 6-0 game.
It’s tough to judge a team after a loss like that but they are an older team with some size and maturity. They don’t stand out in any one area as a team but they play well in all facets. Defenders Victor Malzahn, Ray Galasso and Mike Gallagher are all strong, tough to play against solid defenders and are complimented by a skilled, puck moving defender in Charlie Spence.
Up front Andover obviously didn’t produce much offense but William Hughes continues to prove to be one of the top ’04s in the northeast and ’03 Nick Royster also showed flashes.
They place twice tomorrow starting at 11am against Westminster and then again at 7pm against Hotchkiss School. It wasn’t a good start but they should be right there in both of those games and could turn things around quickly.
Deerfield (2-0 win vs. Milton; 4-4 Tie vs. Salisbury)
Deerfield has to be pretty pleased with how well they played the first day of the tournament including a great come-from-behind tie against Salisbury School. Alex Robert, the teams best all-around forward, scored with 41 seconds remaining in the game to tie it 4-4 with the goalie pulled.
Deerfield isn’t a flashy offensive team but they have size on their blue line and play a heavy game. Eamon Doheny was very good in both games as a big, strong, two-way defender along with big framed Jake Higgins. To compliment their size and toughness they have a talented Pierce Patterson; a skilled puck mover who was excellent here and will likely be ranked high in our upcoming scouting report. Their forward group has a good core of returners but lacks the depth of the top teams. They were led by senior Alex Robert along with Connor Guest and Jarod Harrington. We were also impressed with freshman Drew Garzone who is quietly making a name for himself among the prep ranks as an ’04.
They’ll faceoff against KUA tomorrow at 3pm to see if they’ll have a chance at advancing to the finals.
Hotchkiss School (1-0 win vs. Westminster)
Hotchkiss entered the tournament with a losing record but upon further look their three losses came against three of the best teams in the league in Kent, Salisbury and Gunnery. Tomorrow Gunnery and Kent will play for the Avon Christmas Tournament Championship.
Hotchkiss was led by forwards Gavin Puskar, Jon Horn and Karsen Dorwart. On the backend Jack Ferguson and Brian Haywood had strong performances but mostly the team was victorious as a result of quality goaltending by Henry Wilder and a disciplined defensive game.
They will faceoff against Nobles & Greenough at 9am for a battle of the two goalies coming off shutouts and then play again at 7pm against Phillips Andover.
Kimball Union (2-4 loss vs. Salisbury; 5-2 win vs. Milton)
KUA played a really strong game at the 11am NE Prep rematch tilt against Salisbury but came up short. The story of the game was the ’04 phenom Adam Fantilli, who at times, took over the game despite being the youngest player on the ice. However, KUA is not defined by one player; they have a great deal of depth at all positions and were strong, fast and skilled. On the blue line they were led by senior captain Teddy Griffin along with talented ’03 Connor Chalmers, and Luca Fantilli. While Adam most of the spotlight, older brother Luca is a fine player in his own right and will have plenty of NCAA options going forward.
Up front Adam Fantilli was their best player scoring a rocket release snap shot goal against Salisbury to tie the game but former 6th round NHL draft pick Tomas Mazura and Sullivan Mack were a dynamic duo. Paul Dore and Zach Whitehead are different in style but two underrated prospects who bring a second layer of depth to an already deep team.
They’ll faceoff against a battle tested Deerfield tomorrow at 3pm.
Salisbury (4-2 win vs. KUA, 4-4 tie vs. Deerfield)
The Salisbury Crimson Knights started the day with a major win over rival KUA who have beat them the past two NE Prep Championships. What was more impressive than their win was the way in which they did it which a pure team effort. The Knights have a lot of talent but nobody really stood out above the rest and they won the game with their depth and discipline. However they were not able to maintain that for their second game; while they were able to get the lead and hold it the whole game, they couldn’t pull away and ended up giving up a goal within a minute remaining to tie.
The team is led by NHL Draft prospect Lucas Mercuri who earned the Tournament MVP last season but is complimented by a slew of fowards including Dean Bauchiero, Cole Vallese, Samuel Deckhut and Jake Quillian. Two forwards who playing their best hockey and had noteable performances in both games were power forward Michael Fairfax and Matthew DeBoer. While their depth up front is hard to match; they are also deep defensively with Bayard Hall, Jared Crespo and AJ Casperson leading the way. Max Donoso had an impressive game against KUA in net which was a big task for a young goalie; an underrated OHL/NCAA prospect.
Salisbury will face Milton tomorrow at 1pm for a chance to return to the Flood Marr Championship game Sunday.
Westminster (0-1 loss vs. Hotchkiss)
Westminster is a hard working, defensively disciplined squad with a talented blue line that is both skilled with the puck, mobile and can take away time and space from forwards. Their offense was shutout against talented netminder Henry Wilder, but they had some chances led by senior Jacob Monroe. Their blue line was led by Ned Blanchard, Ryan Pineault, Justin Louette and Brandon Walker. Also notable was physical power forward Wyatt Pastor who was tough to play against and showed an edge in his game.
Goaltender Bennett Ostern was solid between the pipes allowing just one goal against and kept them in the game, particularly on the penalty kill facing heavy pressure.
They’ll faceoff tomorrow at 11am against Andover and then again at 5pm against Nobles and Greenough.
Photo Credit: Dan Hickling/Hickling Images