Concord boys hockey blanks Salem to get back to D1 title game

MANCHESTER – Spencer Burgess wanted to block everything out of his mind going into Wednesday’s Division I semifinal.

That meant the junior goalie would be doing whatever he could to forget when he and the Concord High School boys hockey team played Salem during the regular season.

It worked, as Burgess stopped every shot he faced and the No. 2 Crimson Tide took control with two goals a little more than two minutes apart in the second period in a 4-0 win over No. 3 Salem at JFK Coliseum.

The win sends Concord (17-3) to the championship game for the second time in three years, where the Tide will face No. 1 Bedford at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday at the SNHU Arena.

Concord got a goal and an assist from Andrew Cole, while Alex Marceau, Cameron LaRiviere and Trevor Bickford also scored. Burgess made 21 saves to get the win, making 11 of those stops in the third period with Salem (14-4-2) pressing to get on the board.

“It’s so important to get the lead on them,” Concord Dunc Walsh said. “It gave us some confidence and I thought that (the first) was our best period. Once we got the lead on them, we kind of tried to sit on it, like the game was over. We played hard, but we didn’t always make the right decisions, but we’re still playing.

“(Burgess) was solid. He stopped that breakaway in the second period when it was still 1-0. There were some scary moments there and he kept us right in it.”

The first period went so well for the Tide – they outshot Salem 10-2 and led 1-0 on Cole’s goal – that Burgess had to keep himself in the game.

“That’s not an easy thing to do,” he said. “When you get very few shots, it’s tough to stay in it mentally and physically. What I think helped was my defense. They’ve been solid all year, and a lot of the saves, when I have to make saves, are just routine shots. I can’t give enough credit to those guys and I think that played a big role in keeping the shutout.”

Salem started to swing momentum in the second, as the Blue Devils got more chances, but couldn’t break through and Concord took advantage. The Tide got two goals in a span of 2:03, both off rebounds that Salem goalie Paddy Capsalis (29 saves) couldn’t control.

“We were buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, and then bang, they score a goal,” Salem coach Mark McGinn said. “We spent a lot of time in our zone and by the time we got it out, our kids were gassed. They moved the puck a little quicker, they got it in our zone.”

Going in, the Tide knew they needed to jump on opportunities when they presented themselves.

“That’s the way you’ve got to get them,” Walsh said. “When we played them in Concord, we hit him here (in the center of the chest) about 30 times. You just keep whacking at it so that was huge.”

Salem continued to push into the third period, but Concord did just enough defensively to keep the Blue Devils off the board, which included killing off a penalty midway through the period.

“I thought we went into prevent too early,” Walsh said. “We were telling the guys we’d rather have an icing then have them turn it over inside the blue line. I thought we could have played better in the third, but at this point, it’s about moving on.”