PORTLAND, ME – Saturday night, the Adirondack Thunder took on the host Maine Mariners at Cross Insurance Arena in the second game of a three-game weekend set. After the Mariners scored the first two goals, the Thunder struck for five unanswered tallies – four coming in the second period – to skate away with a 5-2 victory.
The lone goal of the opening frame came in the first minute of action. Playing on a power play, the Mariners connected when Alex Kile sent a pass from the faceoff circle to the slot where NickMaster got his stick on the puck and slid it past Thunder netminder Alex Sakellaropoulos at the 52 second mark.
The rest of the first period was dominated by a series of three fights in a span of seven minutes. First at 10:25, Adirondack’s Alexandre Carrier dropped the gloves with Maine’s Ian McKinnon. Then at 11:28, the Thunder’s Patrick Grasso squared of with the Mariners’ Jake Bricknell. Finally, Adirondack’s Jimmy Mazza and Maine’s Marc-Olivier Duquette went at it at the 17:28 mark to put an exclamation point on the stanza.
The host Mariners began the second period by doubling their lead 2:39 in. Nate Kallen did the honors, surprising Sakellaropoulos with a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle near the boards that beat the Adirondack goalie to make it 2-0.
The Thunder woke up after the Kallen score. At the 4:25 mark, Jordan Kaplan picked up the carom of a blocked shot by Ryan Smith in the slot and putting it past Maine netminder Callum Booth to cut the deficit in half. Less than a minute later, Adirondack tied the score when Shane Harper picked up the robound of a shot by Kyle Thacker, skated behind the net and put a wraparound past Booth for a 2-2 score.
Adirondack’s power play units then went to work. Just shy of eleven minutes into the period, Jake Ryczek whistled a shot from the middle of the blueline that beat Booth who was screened for the first of two man-advantage goals by the Thunder. Just over two minutes later at 12:28, The Thunder special teams struck again when Luke Stevens busted down the far boards and centered a pass to the top of the crease where Robbie Payne directed it into the back of the cage for a 4-2 Adirondack lead.
Needing a spark midway through the final frame, Maine’s Kile went toe-to-toe with Adirondack’s Joe Masonius in a spirited battle. The fight did not help the Mariners as Payne sealed the win with an empty net goal from his defensive blueline with 2:30 remaining to produce the 5-2 final.
Sakellaropoulos stopped 32 of 34 shots to pick up the win for the Thunder while Booth made 28 saves on 32 shots faced in suffering the loss.
The two teams will complete their weekend set Sunday afternoon in Portland starting at 3 p.m.
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