Stephen Peck had something to say.
The Avon Old Farms goalie had just taken a costly tripping penalty in overtime against Hotchkiss when he misjudged a play. Hotchkiss capitalized, scoring on the power play and winning the game. The Winged Beavers had blown a three-goal lead in the game and had dropped two games in a row.
Peck, a senior in his first year at Avon, stood up in front of his teammates and took accountability for the mistake, admitting he was at fault.
“The kids sort of looked at him like, ‘ ... This kid, he’s holding himself accountable,’ ” Avon Old Farms head coach John Gardner said. “In reality, it wasn’t his fault but he took the blame, and I think everybody was accountable to each other. And that’s the key.”
That was on Jan. 11. Avon Old Farms never lost another game, going 13-0-4 over its final 17 contests, including an Elite 8 championship win over Cushing.
“I think that brought us together,” Peck said. “From then on, we never really looked back.”
It wasn’t always such a sure thing that Peck would be the elite puck-stopper that he turned out to be. Heading into the season, Gardner and the Winged Beavers were in a position they hadn’t been in since 2017 — without their longtime trusty goalie Conor Callaghan. After his postgrad year in 2021-22, the Princeton commit moved on to play for the Muskegon Lumberjacks in the USHL.
Former Avon Old Farms assistant coach and current UConn assistant Mike Pereira found Peck, who was playing for the North Jersey Avalanche.
Gardner gets heaps of goalie applicants every year. He’s been bench boss of the Winged Beavers for 49 years. He knows what to look for in prospective students and players.
“Stephen passed all the tests and seemed like a great kid,” Gardner said. “The recommendations he got were outstanding.”
Peck was a vital piece for Avon winning the Elite 8. Along with making 44 saves in the final, he finished the season with the best goals-against average in the region (1.26) and tied for the best save percentage (.948).
“He just kept getting better as the season went on,” senior right wing Joe Odyniec (Ridgefield, Conn.) said. “By the end of the season, I was so confident in him. …I think he was the best goalie in the league this year.”
The 2022-23 version of the Winged Beavers looked a lot like previous renditions of Gardner’s teams, buying in to a strong sense of team defense.
“A lot of times, you get teams that cheat on the offensive side, don’t stay on the defensive side of the puck, waving their sticks in the neutral zone for pucks,” Gardner said. “But I think the team realized if you’re going to win a championship, you have to play good team defense, and they bought in.”
Along with Peck in net, what helped boost that team defense mightily was a strong, deep group of defensemen. The Winged Beavers were fortunate to be able to roll out three legitimate pairs of blueliners.
Of course there was Jordin Palmer (Auburn, N.H.) and Jack Kennedy (Granby, Mass.) on the first pairing. But when those two needed a breather, assistant coach Geoffrey Barlow, who’s in charge of the defense and is the school’s athletic director, could send a second pairing of Yale commit Hudson Miller and Blake Jones over the boards to make life difficult on opponents. Then there was the third duo of Andrew Pitts and Magnus Turcotte (North Haven, Conn.), who were reliable juniors.
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“Everyone talked about it — we had three solid pairs we could roll, which we did,” Odyniec said. “Having that kind of depth back there helped us outlast teams, especially in the playoffs and in the Christmas Classic when you’re playing those bunch of games tight together. Three solid defensive pairs you can throw out there and they’ll do their job, won’t make any mistakes and you trust out there is so important.
“That’s another one of the main reasons we were able to get it done.”
All of that amounted to no one allowing fewer goals than Avon, as the Winged Beavers let only 35 pucks enter their net. Their plus-83 goal differential also was good for best in the region.
But it wasn’t all about defense.
A top line of Northeastern commit Joe Connor (Amherst, N.H.), Brown commit Charlie Gollob and Odyniec, a UConn commit, provided boatloads of offense.
Connor led the team with 21 goals and 43 points. He was a popular prospect whose stock soared, even more, this winter.
“He grew a lot,” Gardner said. “His greatest strength is his greatest weakness. He plays with reckless abandon, he loves hockey. He competes like a dog. He wants to win.”
Gollob, in the middle, chipped in 39 points and Odyniec on the right wing added 38. Odyniec, who committed to UConn in late December, was on the fourth line last year. He opened this season on the second line but was promoted to the top line in the second game of the season against The Hill School. Odyniec potted two goals and never left the flank of Gollob and Connor.
“You see those two freight trains coming at you — other teams turned over the puck quite a bit seeing those guys rolling in on them,” Gardner said of Gollob and Odyniec.
Like on defense, the Avon offense had depth.
When the first line came off the ice, depth scorers like Charles Blanchard (West Hartford, Conn.), Alex Pelletier (Manchester, Conn.), Nick Capasso (Northford, Conn.), Ryan Flaherty (Milton, Mass.), Lefty Markonidis (Hudson, Mass.), Arthur Mirante and Michael Munroe (Hanover, Mass.) could pounce on opposing teams and earn a spot on the scoresheet.
All of the players will remember this team fondly. When former players come back to Avon, they’ll often point up at the banner they won. Now, the 2023 Winged Beavers will be part of that conversation.
“It’s a bond that’ll last forever,” Odyniec said. “This means everything to all of us.”
