RallyNorth.net

Cohen, Peabody make things hairy for Fishermen in blowout victory

Monday, January, 21 By Phil Stacey
Sports editor

Call him Samson on Skates.

With stringy brown hair flying out of the back of his helmet | the kind of hairstyle that was de rigeur in hockey circles two decades ago | Elijah Cohen looks like a player born a couple of generations too late.

His play on Saturday night, though, was simply otherworldly. Scoring four goals | two on the power play and another two while shorthanded | and serving as the ignition for his team's explosive second-period showing, Cohen and the Peabody Tanners came into the Talbot Rink and absolutely blew the hosts out of the water, thrashing the previously unbeaten Fishermen, 7-1, before a boisterous crowd of over 1,000 fans.

"I haven't had it cut since last April," the 16-year-old Cohen said of his hair, a tangle of which was coming out of his winter hat and covering the tops of his eyes. "I like being a little different. It works for me."

Does it ever. If he keeps scoring goals at this rate and he believes his hair is part of the reason why, head coach Mark Leonard won't mind if Cohen doesn't ever trim his locks again.

Thrusting himself to the forefront of the Northeastern Conference MVP chase, Cohen was brilliant in his team's absolute best performance of the season. With an explosive first stride and constantly moving the puck up ice, Cohen and his teammates broke up the middle of the ice at will, owning the neutral zone and attacking the Gloucester net with fervor, ripping 37 shots on the hosts goal.

Now with a team-leading 15 goals, 29 points, 6 power-play goals and two short-handed tallies, Cohen is finally showing the world what he can do when healthy; the center missed large parts of both his freshman and sophomore seasons due to injury.

"Everyone's seeing now what Eli's all about," said Leonard. "How explosive he is, what a beautiful skating stride he has, how good he is with the puck.

"This is the game we were waiting for all year | to play three strong periods and never let up," he added. "This was a real statement we made tonight."

Peabody (9-3) attacked Gloucester's biggest weaknesses | depth on defense | but having its forwards constantly go after Gloucester's blue-liners with plenty of speed. ("We knew we had an advantage there," said Leonard.) By forcing them to the outside, that opened up the middle of the ice for Cohen, his linemates Matt Rodgers and James Noftle (both of whom had a goal and 2 assists) and the other Peabody forwards to create 45 minutes of havoc.

"Hands down, the best team we've faced this season," Gloucester superstar Andrew Fulford said. His team had knocked off the Tanners, 5-3, in last year's Division 2 North quarterfinals. "They just kept coming and coming at us."

And at the forefront of that was the shaggy-haired Cohen. Particularly pleasing to the partisan eye were his two man-down tallies, in which he and the other Peabody penalty killers went after the Fishermen (9-1-1) aggressively when they gained control of the disc, rather than sit back and simply ice the puck.

No question, Cohen's prettiest goal was the one that sunk the dagger in, coming late in the second period to give the Tanners a 6-1 lead. While on the penalty kill, captain Pat Yeo (3 assists) fired a tape-to-tape pass from his spot on defense to a speeding Cohen, who burned two tired Gloucester defenders, deked goaltender Bradley Robertson and slid the puck into the net easily.

"The coaches kept telling us the middle was open all night," said Cohen, who guessed the last time he had four goals in a game was during his Pee-Wee days. "The pass was right there from Patty. It was beautiful."

The game-winning goal | and the one that turned momentum in the Tanners' favor | came with 1:56 to play in the first period. Freshman defenseman Eric Muise dumped the puck in deep, and second-line right winger Andrew Bucci got to it first. The speedy (that's redundant, because all of the Peabody forwards are fast) sophomore cut behind the cage right to left and surprised Robertson by stuffing a wrap-around goal past him far post.

"That one was huge. It gave us a ton of momentum heading into the second period," said Leonard, who has never a lost a game at Talbot Rink as a head coach. "The kids really executed the game plan to perfection."

The victory was also a sweet one for Peabody goaltender Jonathan Camara, who played by far his best game of the season. After letting the first shot he saw go past him, a Jeremy Fanning one-timer, he stopped the other 26 shots that came his way to state his case as the Tanners' No. 1 keeper.

"I didn't let myself get down after that first goal. It was a nice shot; not much I could do about it," said the 19-year-old Camara. "Once we started scoring, my confidence started soaring and it became easier to make saves when they did get shots off.

"Seeing us score all those goals ... it's awesome to watch. I get pumped watching that. This is the way we're capable of playing all the time; when we do, it's going to be awfully hard to beat us."

Gloucester head coach Don Lowe, who saw his team's nine-game winning streak snapped, said the game could be boiled down to two simple points.

"They were really up to play, and we didn't their momentum," he said. "And when you give up two power-play goals and three shorties, you're in big trouble."

Big trouble. That's what the rest of the NEC | not to mention the field in Division 2 North when the playoffs roll around | is in if Peabody can keep playing at the level they did on Saturday night.

Better pray that Cohen decides to get a haircut before he plays your team next.