The Upper Montgomery Lightning return to action this Friday evening versus Whitman at 9:10 pm at Rockville Ice Arena. New spectator protocols will be in place for the game and all Lightning supporters are encouraged to arrive early and allow extra time to enter the ice surface. The cross divisional game will be a key test to see how far the young Upper Montgomery squad has come over the past month. The Lightning are undefeated in their last four games with a 3-0-1 record and now have an overall record of 3-3-1 on the season. Presently, the Lightning occupy one of the final berths in the season-ending Montgomery Hockey Conference post season playoff tournament. The Vikings are a more experienced team and will provide a good barometer as to how competitive the Lightning will be in their three remaining cross divisional games versus Richard Montgomery, Sherwood, and St. Johns.
In net for Upper Montgomery will be Will Mellen. Mellen will get the starting nod with Landon Bernard getting the net on Sunday night for the junior varsity game. In his last two games, Mellen has allowed just one goal and his goals against average for the season is a paltry 1.51. The Lightning defense is a big reason why.
Upper Montgomery’s defense will have to contain the skilled Vikings forwards. The Vikings have ten travel level forwards. Whitman is led on offense by a defender, Charlie Allen, who has 6 goals and 4 assists in 7 games. Second leading scorer Samuel Van Leeuwen has 2 goals and 4 assists in 6 games, while Walter Ingis has scored 3 goals in 6 games. With a full complement on defense; James Botti, George Benedick, Ethan Hockey, Andrew Gean, and Andrew Botti, look for the team to be rock solid on defense even while playing against tougher competition. The Lightning are averaging giving up only 2.71 goals per game and that includes the Blair game in which the Blazers scored 7 goals. Without that one poor defensive outing, the team’s goals against average would be 2.00. The Upper Montgomery penalty kill continues to excel and has killed off 21 of 24 shorthanded situations on the season, 87.5%.
The Lightning’s offense has come to life over the past few games. The team is now averaging 4.71 goals per game. Upper Montgomery’s top line of Chris Hassett, Ryan Jacobson, and Nathan Cassel have led the way tallying 25 of the 33 goals scored by the team thus far on the season. They have been on fire lately with hat-tricks in three consecutive games; two by Hassett and one by Cassell last game versus Northwest. The Lightning received more balanced scoring against the Jaguars with the second line chipping in two goals. Against Whitman all three lines will need to play well for the team to be successful. The Whitman defense contains four AA level travel student athletes. It might be tough sledding for the young Lightning to put many goals past expected starting goalie Reed Crichton.
Friday’s game will likely come down to how well the top line can produce against better competition, if the Lightning defense can continue to remain stingy, and can Will Mellen keep the Lightning in the game by making big stops at key moments in the game. It should be a good one on Friday night and probably low scoring. An upset victory over the Vikings would almost certainly provide the Lightning with enough quality performances to all but guarantee a playoff berth.