The Upper Montgomery Lightning will look to claim win number one of the season on Friday night versus the Blair Blazers. Game time is 8:50 pm at the Rockville Ice Arena.
The Lightning will be decided underdogs once again this week facing a Blair team with many upperclass AA level travel student athletes. The scrappy, young Lightning welcome the return of Ryan Jacobson and Olivia Robbins for the game this week. Both Jacobson and Robbins missed last week’s game versus Quince Orchard for out-of-town travel team commitments.
Landon Bernard will get the start in net for the Lightning. Bernard started the Rockville/Magruder game and played well making several key saves in the team’s 3-2 opening night loss to the Rams. Expect Will Mellen to return to action later this month. Mellen will miss this week’s game for out-of-town travel team commitments. The Upper Montgomery defense will have to repeat last week’s performance against Quince Orchard, where the unit performed admirably and held Cougars high scoring duo of Joshua Weitzman and Dylan Eyester largely in check. This week the task is even more challenging facing the offensively gifted Blazers who are coming off a season opening 5-1 win versus the Rockville/Magruder Rams.
Up front, Upper Montgomery needs to have the offense kick up a gear. With only three goals combined in the first two games of the season, a little more firepower is needed to assist in securing a victory over the Blazers. Nathan Cassel has goals in both games. Chris Hassett has two primary assists setting up both of Cassel’s goals. No other Lightning skater has more than one point. The increase in offensive production will need to change quickly for the Lightning to be competitive against the high scoring Blazers.
The Blazers are led by a group of junior and senior AAA and AA level travel student athletes. Michael Humphreys led the way against Rockville/Magruder with four goals. Alex Birchard chipped in with one goal and two assists. His twin brother Chris Birchard doled out three assists. The dominating win came without arguably the Blazers most talented forward, Remy Chartol, who missed the Rockville/Magruder game due to out-of-town travel team commitments. On defense the Blazers will feature Ben Russell and Ryan Frank. Expect both to see significant ice time against the Lightning. The senior defenders helped hold the Rams in check throughout the opening night victory. The Blazers were perfect on the penalty kill, squashing all four Rams’ power plays. Senior netminder Peter Zelinsky will hope to duplicate his 26 save gem (.963 save %) against the Lightning.