The Upper Montgomery Lightning will be looking to string together two consecutive victories when the team hosts the Silver Spring Blazers on Friday night. Puck drop is at 8:45 pm at Rockville Ice Arena. In the team’s first meeting, Upper Montgomery jumped out to a huge 6-1 lead before failing to continue to play in their structured defensive system. The deviation from defensive hockey opened the door to a massive comeback for the Blazers. Even having a three goal lead with four minutes remaining in regulation, Upper Montgomery continued to cough up chance after chance allowing the Blazers to tie the game late before scoring the game winner with four seconds left. Upper Montgomery’s offense was really good, scoring seven goals. The last twenty minutes of game play, the team’s defensive performance was putrid giving up seven goals (eight total on the night) and suffering a loss that spiraled into the start of a five game losing streak.
The Lightning still have a bad taste in their mouth and will be looking for payback on Friday evening. Sophomore goaltender 16U Lower A Porter Stutsrim-Lyons will also be looking for redemption as he felt personally responsible for the team’s loss which was not the case. Recently, each week, the Lightning have had to cobble together the team’s lineup as upper level students have been missing the high school games while they have been out-of-town with their external travel teams or injured. Last week, saw the return of stating goaltender 16U AAA Ilan Shterenberg and ninth grade 16U AA high scoring forward Miles Gleason. Their return along with the return of junior forward Jackson Schickler means that the squad is just waiting on its two first line senior forwards to return to action and the team will again be at full strength. Upper Montgomery’s team depth has been severely tested as these upper level talented students have missed games. Many ninth graders and sophomores have stepped into key roles a couple of years before they are physically ready to play at the high school varsity level.
Upper Montgomery’s primary varsity goaltender junior 16U AAA Ilan Shterenberg will again miss playing against the Blazers. He has a 2-2 record, a .904 save percentage, and a 3.30 goals against average. Shterenberg opened the season pitching a 25 save shutout against the DC Stars for the first shutout of his varsity career. Stutsrim-Lyons will start in his place. The Blazers, are expected to start ninth grade 14U Upper A goalie Myle Amirthalingam. In the first game, Upper Montgomery had no difficulty scoring on Amirthalingam finding the back of the net seven times. He is a small goalie who relies on his athletic ability and quick side to side movement. The Blazers’ young goalie has a 3-1-2 record, a 3.75 goals against average, and an .829 save percentage. Upper Montgomery will be trying to repeat their scoring barrage to prove it was not a one off performance.
On defense, the Lightning will again likely roll with four defenders. The Lightning’s leading defensive (and overall) scorer, senior 18U AA Brady Berkhammer has been awesome this season, (7GP, 9G, 12A). He is also the leading scorer in the county. He is by far the leading defensive scorer, six points clear of the closest defensive scorer in the Montgomery Hockey Conference and for all of the Maryland Student Hockey League. Berkhammer will need to play a very strong defensive game against the Blazers. Last week he was asked to shadow and shut down the league’s leading goal scorer, Ethan Custodio of Northwest / Quince Orchard, and did an admirable job. Lightning junior 16U Upper A Miles Wendland (7GP, 1G, 2A) has taken on a larger role this season. He played his best game of the season last week. The Upper Montgomery coaching staff changed up the defensive pairings and played Wendland with Berkhammer to attempt to throttle Custodio. The strategy worked with both Berkhammer and Wendland shining in the Lightning’s victory! Sophomore 16U Lower A Matt Rivera (7GP, 1G, 3A) will miss the Blazers game due to the farce of a major boarding penalty called against him last week. The league reviewed the hit and confirmed that the contact was not worthy of a penalty, much less a major penalty. Unfortunately, a stupid USA Hockey rule prevents the referees from overturning the call once the game is uploaded and finalized in the scoring system. Rugged junior defender Max Curtusan returns to the lineup this week and he will likely be paired with Wendland. Sophomore 16U AA defender Lillian Robbins returns from several weeks away playing with her external travel team. She likely will slide in and play with Berkhammer. The Lightning’s two young ninth grade defenders will dress for the game, but may not play very frequently if at all. Dylan Kim and Lenny Roth have both gained valuable experience over these past few weeks and have played safe solid hockey.
The Blazers leading returning defender is senior former 16U AA Joey Killebrew who has increased his scoring this season. Killebrew plays more of a puck possession game while excelling at taking away time and space in the neutral zone. His year to date personal statistics are (8GP, 4G, 2A). Sophomore 16U AA Simon Holland leads the team in scoring (7GP, 8G, 4A). He had a massive game against Upper Montgomery with four goals and an assist in the first game. It was his goal from long range with four seconds remaining in the contest that proved to be the game winner. Sophomore 16U AA Dan Sellers (7GP, 1G, 3A) is more of a defensive defender. Senior 18U Upper A Robert Woodward (7GP, 3G, 2A) and Junior Ethan Hedberg both have a substantial amount of experience at the varsity level. They bring added leadership to the younger Silver Spring defenders allowing the Blazers coaching staff to play a full complement of defenders to keep their back end fresh. The Blazers depth defenders, Tobias Lin and Rakshay Narayanan will play as well. If all of the student athletes are present for the game, the Blazers have the best core of defenders in division two of the Montgomery Hockey Conference.
Upper Montgomery’s top line of senior 18U AAA center and team captain Owen Robbins (3GP, 2G, 7A), flanked by fellow senior and the Lightning’s leading scorer last season Philip Shkeda (4GP, 6G, 4A), paired with ninth grade 16U AA Miles Gleason (4GP, 11G, 5A) have been DOMINANT. Unfortunately, the trio has played together only twice this season as Robbins has missed time with his external travel team. Shkeda is still out for the next month or so with an upper body injury. The good news was that Gleason returned from his own recent month long absence due to a medical issue. In his return Gleason provided instant offense with two goals and two assists. He now has four points or more in three of the four games he has played in. Next week, it is anticipated that Robbins will be back in action for the Lightning. So, the team is getting its top line forward members back slowly over the course of the next several weeks. In their absence, junior 16U Upper A forward Aiden Zheng (6GP, 2G, 3A) has stepped up and provided a spark. He has scored in two of the previous three games. His hustle, energy, and playmaking are an example to the younger students who should be watching how Zheng plays away from the puck.
The Blazers score by committee as they don’t have that one dominant skater to carry their team. Junior 16U AA Mason Boucher leads the Silver Spring forwards in scoring with (6GP, 3G, 7A). Next is ninth grade 16U AA Foster Miles with (6GP, 3G, 5A), followed closely by 18U AA William Campbell (6GP, 5G, 2A) and ninth grade 14U Upper A Rodrick Hobbs (6GP, 6G, 1A). Ninth grade forward Victor Dvorson (7GP, 2G, 3A) had an goal and two assists versus Upper Montgomery in October. The Lightning are well versed in what Silver Spring will attempt to do offensively on Friday night. They will send multiple forwards to the net to cause chaos. They will look to have shooters push out into the slot between the faceoff circles flinging shots on goal with the opponent’s goalie screened. Expect that the Silver Spring defense will also be well integrated into the offensive zone play. Upper Montgomery’s forwards will have to be aware when a Blazers defender cuts to the net looking for a back door pass.
The only way that Upper Montgomery will climb up the county standings and rankings and consistently win games is by being buttoned up on the defensive side of the ice. The Lightning must suffocate the game and play a very hard physical defensive game against high powered offensive skaters. The goaltending also needs to be better. There have been several games recently when a soft goal or two against has deflated the team. The Silver Spring game will come down to which team is better able to manage the puck in their own defensive end of the ice to limit the other offense from getting good looks. If the game is a repeat of the wild affair from October, look out as the spectators will be incredibly pleased.
#Redemption, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!