After suffering their first loss since early November, the Upper Montgomery Lightning return to action on Friday, January 21st versus the Sherwood Warriors. Game time is 8:45 pm at Rockville Ice Arena. The Lightning will be looking to bounce back from a tough 4-1 loss to a very good Richard Montgomery team and return to the win column. Friday’s game will be the second to last conference game of the season and provides an opportunity for the Lightning to quickly put last week’s game behind them. Sherwood started the season with eight consecutive losses before winning their last two games against weaker competition. The Lightning will need to play a complete game to thwart Sherwood and gain valuable standings points with the beginning of the playoffs only two weeks away.
The Lightning will start Will Mellen in goal. Mellen is coming off a 40-save loss to the Rockets. The loss broke a long winning streak where he had given up only two goals in his previous four starts. Mellen still leads the Montgomery Hockey Conference (MHC) both in goals against average, 1.57 gaa, and in save percentage, .927. He will need to play very well in this game to give the Lightning an opportunity. Sherwood is a high risk, fast break team, and can score goals in bunches. As we saw during the Whitman game, Mellen certainly has it in him to singlehandedly frustrate the opponent. Thomas Russell will get the start for the Warriors. He has been up and down this season while playing against some very good competition in the upper division of the Montgomery Hockey Conference.
The Upper Montgomery defense will get back James Botti who missed last week’s game versus Richard Montgomery as he was out-of-town with his external travel team. His absence was really felt after George Benedick took at two minute penalty for checking from behind. The checking from behind penalty automatically comes with a ten minute misconduct. Losing Benedick for the extended twelve minutes of game action coupled with James Botti’s absence put the Lightning in a bind with only three experienced defenders. With the entire lineup available to the coaching staff, expect the defense to focus on Sherwood’s leading goal scorer, Jarden Reed,18U AA, who has nine goals in ten games (10 GP, 9 G, 2 A). Reed, who is big and strong, and skates really well, will clearly be the most notable forward for the Warriors. Other top scorers for Sherwood are primary playmaker Grayson Winckler, 16U AA, (10 GP, 4 G, 11 A), Jeremy Isaacs, 18U AA, (10 GP, 7 G, 5 A), and Christian Winckler (10 GP, 5 G, 7 A). James, Botti, George Benedick, Ethan Hockey, Andrew Botti, and Andrew Gean will have to clamp down and prevent this quartet of forwards from making noise in the offensive zone. Even though the Upper Montgomery penalty kill has been excellent this season (37 of 40, 92.5%), staying out of the penalty box will be critical to keeping the Warriors off the board.
Key to the Lightning winning this week will be having all three lines contributing. The absence of a couple of forwards last week led to the coaching staff having to juggle the line combinations. Against higher quality opponents in division one, having a full lineup is paramount to being able to match lines and compete with an evenly balanced lineup. Expect the lines to be Chris Hassett (10 GP, 11 G, 12 A), playing center between Ryan Jacobson (8 GP, 5 G, 9 A), and Nathan Cassell (9 GP, 11 G, 4 A). The top line has been very effective creating turnovers in the offensive zone and converting those turnovers into high quality scoring chances. The second line will likely be Bradley Cupples (10 GP, 1 G, 10 A) playing center between Hunter Cameron (10 GP, 5 G, 5 A), and Olivia Robbins (7 GP, 1 G, 3 A). Depending upon how the game is progressing, James Botti may also see some shifts at forward on the second line. A major problem for the Warriors this season has been on the defensive end of play. Samuel Greenberg (18U AA) is the top defender and then it is a patchwork of skaters playing defense. Sherwood is averaging giving up 5.7 goals a game and has given up the third most goals in the Montgomery Hockey Conference. If the Lightning can keep Sherwood off the board and play a structured game, they should be able to light the lamp against Russell.
Upper Montgomery has likely done enough to qualify for the Montgomery Hockey Conference division one playoff tournament. A win versus the Warriors would prevent Upper Montgomery from having to play the number five seeded team in the first round of the playoffs. The first four teams receive a bye into the quarterfinal round of the tournament. Rebounding with a win versus the Warriors would give the Lightning momentum heading out to Hagerstown to play a very talented Washington County squad. It will be an exciting finishing two week stretch with games against three high quality opponents as the team completes its 2021-2022 regular season schedule.