MILTON, Mass. — Just 18 seconds into Sunday's Flood-Marr championship, Kimball Union forward Sam LeDrew slipped behind the Salisbury defense.
Jack Sadowski (Arlington, Mass.), his linemate, hit him with the pass and LeDrew was gone, left all alone to dangle Salisbury goalie Cooper Flemming and give the Wildcats an early lead.
Kimball Union never looked back, taking down Salisbury, 5-2, and winning its first Flood-Marr championship since 2017.
The Wildcats followed up their first strike with another before the halfway point of the first period. KUA center Corwith Simmers gained the offensive blue line and hit LeDrew with a pass. LeDrew, a St. Lawrence commit, went around a Salisbury defender and threaded a beautiful backhand pass to Sadowski for a one-timer goal, making it 2-0.
Ryan Hedley responded for Salisbury when he followed up on a rebound and put it around Kimball Union goalie Blake McMeniman (Revere, Mass.) to cut the lead in half with just over eight minutes remaining in the first frame.
When the second period opened, Salisbury forward Connor Davis took control, zipping past the KUA defense and roofing a shot over McMeniman's glove to make it 2-2 just 27 seconds into the second.
But head coach Tim Whitehead's team responded when LeDrew got the puck at the offensive blue line and threaded a shot through traffic and into the back of the net, giving Kimball Union a lead it never gave up.
Simmers extended the lead to 4-2 when he one-timed a shot past Flemming midway through the third period. Sadowski added the empty-net goal with 1:49 left to put the game away.
Sadowski also earned MVP honors for the tournament. Thatcher Bernstein (Brookline, Mass.) and Sam Caulfield (Needham, Mass.), both goalies, won it the previous two seasons and there was no Flood-Marr tournament in 2020.
Let's dive into the takeaways from this game. I will have takeaways and standouts from the entire tournament throughout this week.
1. The X-factor in this game was Kimball Union's top line of Sadowski, Simmers and LeDrew. That trio netted all five goals and was dominant for long stretches. Sadowski is known for his shot and finishing ability, but his patience and vision were on display Sunday. On Simmers' goal to make it 4-2 KUA, Sadowski, a UNH commit, got the puck in an area where he'd normally let a shot go. Instead, he held on to it, waited for Flemming to get set and fed Simmers in the slot for an open one-timer. LeDrew drove play all afternoon, showcasing his speed and high compete, proving impossible for Salisbury to stop. He made a high IQ play to get Sadowski the puck on the UNH commit's empty-net goal.
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2. McMeniman is 5-foot-8. That's short for a goalie, and it couldn't have mattered less on Sunday. The Revere, Mass., native continued to come up big for Kimball Union. His most notable saves came at the end of the first period with his team holding a 2-1 lead. First, he denied Davis on a breakaway. Seconds later, he denied Hedley. Both players tried to go high glove and McMeniman stopped them. Davis re-entered the zone shortly after and tried to beat McMenmian low, but couldn't. McMeniman's composure and poise on big chances was impressive.
3. As dominant as Kimball Union's top line was, Whitehead's team has a strong second line in Kyle Murray-Smith (South Stafford, Vt.), Malcolm Baar and CJ Watroba (West Springfield, Mass.). Those three saw a lot of minutes and, because of Murray-Smith's size, were able to get a fair amount of sustained offensive zone time. This trio never found the scoresheet but still impacted the game.
4. That depth extends on defense, too. Whitehead's top four of Andrew O'Sullivan (Scituate, Mass.), Jack McMinn, Luke Clarner (East Burke, Vt.) and Ian Ramsay — all seniors — gave Salisbury forwards fits for much of the game. O'Sullivan and McMinn were master puck-movers, while Clarner and Ramsay's size, reach and shutdown abilities prohibited Salisbury from getting much offense going.
5. Salisbury was hampered by slow starts for the entire tournament and that trend continued in the championship. The Crimson Knights were able to get away with that in other games, but against a very good KUA team, it felt like they were never able to take control of the game.
6. Salisbury's top line of Seamus Latta, Hedley and Davis came to play. While they were outshined by KUA's top trio, Hedley scored Salisbury's first and Davis notched the second. I'll have more on Davis in the coming days, but the late '06 was one of the most noticeable players in the tournament.
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7. In my latest top 10, I had Kimball Union at No. 4 and Salisbury at No. 5. The gap between the two teams is greater than that. Again, I'll have more takeaways from the tournament throughout the week, but one of my biggest was that Kimball Union was clearly the best team at the Flood-Marr — and definitely one of the best in the region. On the other hand, Salisbury head coach Andrew Will's teams typically start seasons slow and get much better as the season goes on.
