Cranbury’s Ryan and Teifer look like savvy veterans for PHS
By: Rich Fisher
The way Princeton High coach Paul Merrow looks at it, John Ryan and Peter Teifer may be freshmen, but they are far from inexperienced when it comes to hockey.
Which is why Merrow is not overly surprised that the Cranbury duo has burst on the Colonial Valley Conference scene like an Al MacInnis slap shot. Ryan leads the Tigers in scoring and is third in the CVC with 23 points (13 goals, 10 assists), while Teifer is third on the team and 18th in the CVC with six goals and eight assists for 14 points.
"I think it has a lot to do with the amount hockey they play and where they play their club hockey," Merrow said. "They both played a lot of hockey growing up. I was definitely counting on them, being as we’re very young with nine freshmen in the lineup. We were counting on them to step in right away. Both of them have contributed tremendously."
The Tigers are 6-6-1 overall and 6-2-1 in the CVC, as the youth is coming through.
But while the lifelong friends were confident in their abilities, they admit their success has been somewhat surprising.
"I definitely didn’t expect it to be like this," Teifer said. "But it’s all working out."
"I thought we could be successful, but I had no idea I’d have this much success this quick," added Ryan. "But Peter and I have always worked well together, we’ve been best friends since the first grade."
Soon after becoming friends, they played hockey.
"We used to do a little public skating at Ice Land (in Hamilton), and I always played street hockey with my neighbors," Ryan said. "I thought it was cool."
Both players attended clinics at Ice Land in the second grade, and started playing in the East Windsor PAL in the third grade.
Ryan moved onto the Mercer Chiefs of the Atlantic Hockey League and Teifer joined him a year later.
Ryan has remained with the Chiefs and still plays with them. He is currently leading that league in scoring as well. His team went to the national tournament a few years ago, but Ryan did not make the trip due to a broken collarbone.
"We were up in Troy, New York, and I was on a semi-breakaway," the 5-foot-7 Ryan said. "Some six-foot kid elbowed me in the collarbone. I had him beat, and as I went around him he hit me and it just snapped.
"It’s kind of funny, because I’m 70 percent Irish and it happened on St. Patrick’s Day."
Unlike Ryan, who has always been a skater, Teifer played goalie in PAL.
"I started out playing center and didn’t really like that," the 5-6 Teifer said. "I didn’t like being the smallest player on the ice, I wasn’t really scoring. I was pretty decent at goalie so I kept with it."
When he joined Mercer, Teifer was switched to defense. Several years later, he left the Chiefs for the less demanding Princeton Youth League and was switched to offense. He has been there ever since.
This year, the two are wingers on the same line, with either Jonathan Lauri or Matt Leuck centering them.
"I didn’t know much about Peter, other than I knew he played club hockey over the years," Merrow said. "I had a good idea of how John Ryan would be. He played for our summer league team. When I first saw him, he jumped out very quickly in terms of his offense and his offensive production, the way he handles the puck and sets up people and scores as well."
Ryan is on left wing and Teifer is on the right. Each brings special talents to the table.
"JR brings a tremendous offensive sense of the game," Merrow said. "He sees the ice real well, he’s very unselfish. He dishes the puck off and he knows when to shoot. His offensive mind for the game is great.
"Peter is lightning fast, so he’s hard to catch when he has the puck. He works hard, he’s very tenacious around the puck. He hounds it and he gets it to the right spots at the right time."
Although the two are separated by a center, that has not stopped them from assisting on each other’s goals numerous times this season.
"I think it’s just chemistry," Ryan said. "We both have pretty good puck sense, we both know where each other is gong to be. It’s one of those things where we don’t have to see where each other is, but we still know where each other is."
That chemistry has certainly made them two of the top newcomers in the CVC this year, far surpassing Teifer’s goals.
"I just wanted to have some fun and win some games," Teifer said.
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A lesser publicized Little Tiger from Cranbury is sophomore defensemen Justin Faulkner, whose name does not appear in the boxscores for scoring that often, but whose contributions are still important.
"Justin has done a lot for us," Merrow said. "I asked him to play defense last year when we got some injuries. This year, I had him starting out at forward and he asked if he could move back on defense. He just wants to help out the team any way he can."
The defense needed help when another defensemen from Cranbury, Brad Carduner, injured himself in December.
"That was a big loss for us," Merrow said of the Peddie transfer. "He was excited about playing hockey and he was doing a good job. Hopefully, if all goes well he might be back for the end of the season."