The Upper Montgomery Lightning return to action on Friday evening against the Churchill Bulldogs Team Two. Game time is late night at Rockville Ice Arena, a 10:00 pm start. Unlike Monday’s game against Churchill’s main varsity team, an 8-0 Upper Montgomery defeat, the game against Churchill Two will be even more lopsided in the Lightning’s favor. Upper Montgomery should never be threatened in this contest.
The Bulldogs enter the contest ranked last in the county standings with an 0-6 record. They have scored ten goals in six games. Defensively, Churchill Two has given up 57 goals in six games, an average of 9.5 goals per game, and Churchill Two has mainly played against the bottom teams in the county standings. Quite simply, Churchill Two would be more appropriately rostered at the junior varsity level, and even then, several of the better junior varsity teams in the county would beat Churchill Two, Upper Montgomery included.
Friday’s game will be similar to a working scrimmage. Upper Montgomery will jump out front early in the game and will use the rest of the game to sharpen their play heading into next week’s important rematch against the Whitman Vikings. Expect the coaching staff to provide many student athletes who do not play significant minutes with lots of playing time.
An encouraging sign for the Lightning is that junior defender Andrew Botti is expected to make his first appearance this season. Botti’s return from a preseason injury that has kept him out of the Lightning’s first eight games should be a jolt of confidence for the team on the defensive side of the puck. His leadership and calming ability should settle down a defensive corps that has been underwhelming thus far over the first half of the season.
Churchill Two is led in scoring by Adam Klewans who has 5GP, 2G, 3A. No other Bulldog skater has more than three points. In goal for the Bulldogs will be either Nick Nelson who has a 7.36 goals against average and a .730 save percentage or Lucas Petrosyan who has a 13.20 goals against average and a .585 save percentage. Upper Montgomery is likely to play both goalies, Landon Bernard and Ilan Shterenberg in the game.
One area that needs to immediately improve is the Lightning’s powerplay, or lack thereof. Upper Montgomery remains 0 for the season, 0-20. The only ‘powerplay’ goal scored by the Lightning this season has been a converted penalty shot. The lack of success with the extra skater is unacceptable with the level of talent the Lightning have on the ice. Although there will likely be very few powerplay opportunities in this game, if the powerplay continues to falter, anticipate that the coaching staff is going to make changes. Several student athletes who do not normally receive powerplay time will get an opportunity.
Upper Montgomery needs to use this game as a springboard to go on a run over the second half of the season. Qualifying for the state playoffs is still a realistic goal for the program, but only if the student athletes come together as a team and play for each other.
#Start the Streak, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!