Messalonskee players hug teammate Owen Kirk (5) after he scored the Eagles’ first goal against Camden Hills during Tuesday’s game in Readfield. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

The Messalonskee boys hockey team has offense. Lots of it.

The Eagles’ 4-2 win over Camden Hills on Tuesday wasn’t their best of the season, but they never wavered, because when needed, their best offensive weapons stepped up.

Junior center Tatum Doucette led the Eagles with two goals, while junior right wing Christian Salvadori and senior left wing Owen Kirk each added a goal. The trio has combined for 66 points this season and Messalonskee is the top team in the Class B North standings at 7-0.

“We’re pretty excited,” Kirk said, “But we have a lot of hard matchups coming up. We just have to keep rolling. It’s good to have a good start, but we still have around two more months of the season, so we can’t really get too confident right now.”

Kirk, the team’s lone senior, tallied 43 points (24 goals, 19 assists) last season, and leads the team with 26 points (16 goals, 10 assists) this season. Salvadori (7 goals, 13 assists)  and Doucette (6 goals, 14 assists) each have 20 points. What’s apparent watching the group on the ice is the willingness to share the puck. On Tuesday night, Salvadori set up both of Doucette’s goals. Doucette returned the favor with an assist on Salvadori’s goal in the second period.

“We do pretty good in the (offensive zone),” Doucette said. “We know where each other are and we move (the puck) around pretty well, and that helps, especially in practice, we’re alway moving the puck to each other very well.”

“We move the puck and read each other very well, but we get shots on net and just crash the net,” Salvadori said.

Messalonskee coach Dennis Martin said this is the first year the trio has played together on the same line.

“They practice well, they work well and they’re unselfish,” Martin said. “And when you see the guy who gets open, that person gets the puck… They communicate well. It’s just nice to see them down there. They’ve been better than I though they were going to be.

“We pressure (offensively). We pressure, we force and we force. We don’t lay back.”

Messalonskee has scored 39 goals over its first seven games, an average of 5.6 goals per game, and has allowed just nine. The Eagles’ attack helps a young group on the back end of the ice. Junior Denny Martin is the only veteran defenseman, with sophomore Nathan Kirk handling the goaltending duties. Kirk is 7-0 with a 1.35 goals against average.

“(The attack) helps our (defensive zone),” Owen Kirk said. “We don’t score if we don’t get the puck out of our D-Zone. Our goalie saves the puck, we can move the puck up from our defense. We can stretch the ice, and it all just starts from there.

“(The forwards) have the ability to pass, score, back-check. We can all play both ways. That unselfishness helps each other get open. It’s hard to (cover) where we are, because we’re always moving.”

The group is also motivated by the end of its season a year ago. Messalonskee entered the B North playoffs as the No. 1 seed, but fell to No. 8 Old Town/Orono 3-1 in the quarterfinal round.

“We felt like we could have gone further than we did last year,” Doucette said. “We want to make it a lot further than we did last year.”

Salvadori added: “It hurt to go down the way we did against OTO as the No. 1 seed. But I think that just fuels us to pick it up this year and go all the way.”