Fresh off their most impressive victory of the season, the Upper Montgomery Lightning return to game action on Friday evening December 16th versus the Sherwood Warriors. Game time is 8:15 pm at Cabin John Ice Rink. The Lightning will be looking to make it three wins over their last four games if they can beat the Warriors. Upper Montgomery is firmly in the Montgomery Hockey Conference season ending playoff tournament. The team’s performance over the next six games will determine if Upper Montgomery will host a first round playoff matchup. If Upper Montgomery plays a strong team game against Sherwood, the Lightning have the talent to come out on top.
Once again, Upper Montgomery’s leading scorers Nathan Cassel (5GP, 6G, 6A) and Chris Hassett (6GP, 4G, 6A) will need to carry the offensive load. Friday’s game will see the return to game action of Lightning center Ryan Jacobson (4GP, 4G, 2A). His return to action is welcomed and will help neutralize the Warrior’s highly skilled forward group. Junior forward Olivia Robbins, fresh off of her two goal game against Blair, will miss the Sherwood game as she is out-of-town with her external travel team. Depth scoring which had been a weakness of the team in previous seasons is more prevalent this year. Brandon Bernard has scored in all four games he has participated in this season (4GP, 4G, 2A). Philip Shkeda has complemented Cassel and Hassett nicely (7GP, 3G, 5A). Olivia Robbins (5GP, 3G, 4A) has increased her offensive production from last season.
The defense has also been more active offensively. Senior George Benedick has picked up his scoring pace over his previous three seasons (5GP, 3G, 5A). His eight points are a career high and are more points than he accumulated in his previous three seasons combined. Ethan Hockey, Brady Berkhammer, and Andrew Botti have tallied, five, five, and four points each. The third line was good this past Friday evening. Goals from Stephen Shkeda and Henry Honakci who notched his first career varsity goal against the Blazers helped. The depth scoring has taken the pressure off of the top line and has made the team more difficult to match up against. Playing mostly against the second division teams, Sherwood is averaging giving up 6.5 goals per game. The Lightning should be able to light the lamp on Friday night.
In goal, Landon Bernard will be looking to continue his strong performances. He has been very good in goal the past couple of weeks at both the varsity and junior varsity levels. He stopped 14 of 15 shots against Blair just losing a shutout with less than a minute remaining in the game. In the junior varsity games, he is keeping the team in games against superior opponents. Bernard needs to remain solid in net for Upper Montgomery to be victorious. Sherwood will start Samuel Hutt in net. Hutt has been left out to dry by a porous Warrior defense and has a 7.68 GAA and a .704 save percentage.
Sherwood has six very talented skaters. Jeremy Isaacs (18U AA) leads the team with (5GP, 10G, 7A). Grayson Winckler (16U AA) has (6GP, 9G, 6A). Noi Jonasson (16U AAA) has (5GP, 7G, 7A) and scored a ‘michigan goal’ last season against Upper Montgomery. Aidan Cook (16U AA) has (6GP, 7G, 3A). Oz Sacks (14U AA) has chipped in with (6GP, 4G, 3A). On defense the Warriors are led by Samuel Greenberg (18U AA), (7GP, 5G, 1A). Sherwood tries to win games by outscoring their opponents. The Warriors are weak defensively and Upper Montgomery should be able to take advantage of the Warriors back line. As with last week’s game, the Lightning will have to carefully determine when to press forward offensively while these skilled student athletes are on the ice. Keeping the Warriors out of transition attack mode will limit Sherwood’s ability to score goals.
Last week’s victory was a nice start. The Lightning need to pile up victories over the next few weeks against teams with similar talent. The Sherwood game could go either way and is entirely dependent upon if Upper Montgomery plays a strong, unselfish team game like the team did last week against Blair. The team needs to have the attitude of taking it right to the Warriors from the opening faceoff and playing good defensive hockey over the full 45 minutes to snag an important third win of the season. The Lightning will be able to score goals against Sherwood. The outcome of the game will be based on the team’s ability to keep Sherwood’s top skaters off the scoresheet. Upper Montgomery needs to forget about last week’s game and remain hungry for wins. It is time to gain a swagger and make other teams prove that they can beat Upper Montgomery. Bring it home again this week Lightning!