The Upper Montgomery Lightning varsity squad unexpectedly exploded past the DC Stars in their season opener last week. The annihilation ended in a final score of 8-0. However, only five and a half minutes into the second period the game was into running clock as Upper Montgomery was already well in front six to nothing. In the preseason Montgomery Hockey Conference poll, the Lightning were ranked as the second worst team in the conference. Now, after one week of conference play, Upper Montgomery leads the entire county in goals scored. While the program was pleased with the season opening victory, the weeks ahead will be much tougher as the competition increases. The Lightning will also have to balance upper level students missing high school games when they will be out-of-town with their external travel teams. When the Lightning are playing with less than a full roster, the team’s depth will be severely tested. Next up for Upper Montgomery is the Silver Spring Blazers on Friday night. Game time is 8:30 pm at Rockville Ice Arena.
Upper Montgomery’s primary varsity goaltender junior 16U AAA Ilan Shterenberg will not play this week as he is with his external travel team. Shterenberg opened the season pitching a 25 save shutout against the Stars for the first shutout of his varsity career. With Shterenberg absent, Upper Montgomery’s primary junior varsity goalie, sophomore 16U Lower A Porter Stutsrim-Lyons will step in and shoulder the netminding responsibilities. Stutsrim-Lyons excelled in his emergency varsity start last season during the opening round of the Montgomery Hockey Conference playoffs against BCC where he stopped 40 of 43 shots to keep Upper Montgomery in the game. He also set the Upper Montgomery all-time junior varsity record for save percentage in a season with a .930 save percentage last year. This season, at the junior varsity level he has played well with a goals against average of 2.54 and a save percentage of .926.
Silver Spring, formerly the Blair Blazers, are expected to start ninth grade 14U Upper A goalie Myle Amirthalingam. The Blazers started their backup goalie against the Lightning’s junior varsity squad a few weeks ago. The scouting report on Amirthalingam is that he is a quick athletic goalie who moves well side to side. As a ninth grader, he is relatively small which may provide Upper Montgomery some decent looks at the net. Amirthalingam won his first conference game last week when Silver Spring breezed past Richard Montgomery. It is hard to evaluate Amirthalingam, or the Blazers performance for that matter, as Richard Montgomery was projected by a wide margin to be the lowest ranked team in the conference. Silver Spring’s 5-1 win last week got the job done but was not attention grabbing. The Blazers’ young goalie has a 1.43 goals against average and a .944 save percentage. Upper Montgomery will be trying to repeat their scoring barrage from last week to prove it was not a one off performance.
On defense, the Lightning will role with four defenders. The Lightning’s leading defensive scorer, 18U AA senior Brady Berkhammer returns to lead the Lightning’s backline. He was very good last game pushing the puck up ice when the opportunity was available. He resisted the temptation to do too much by himself. Last season, Berkhammer contributed (15GP, 4G, 15A). He led the team in assists, with many superb passes leading directly to tap in goals. Berkhammer will need to play a very strong game against the Blazers to make up for Lillian Robbins missing the game due to being out-of-town with her external travel team. Sophomore 16U Lower A Matt Rivera fared pretty well against the Stars playing almost exclusively with Berkhammer. He has played much more confidently this season in the Lightning’s junior varsity games and during practice. His progression this year into a full time varsity defender will allow the Lightning to play with two full sets of defense. Lightning junior 16U Upper A Miles Wendland looks to take on a larger role this season. He logged significant ice time last season and had his best offensive campaign (16GP, 2G, 4A). A steady, smooth skating defender, Wendland is rarely caught out of position. A challenge for the lanky defender will be bodying up and playing in the Lightning’s new more physical defensive style. Playing with Wendland against Silver Spring will be junior Max Curtusan who is expected to make his varsity debut this week. The Lightning defense has been instructed to rush up ice and contribute more offensively with the team short on experienced forwards. However, in this game the defensive focus will be on clearing the crease area providing Stutsrim-Lyons with good sight lines to make saves while quickly clearing away rebounds. Ninth grade defender Lenny Roth is expected to dress for the game in case of an injury or to serve dual penalty minutes.
The Blazers leading returning defender is senior former 16U AA Joey Killebrew who has scored in each of the Blazers first two games. Killebrew plays more of a puck possession game while excelling at taking away time and space in the neutral zone. Sophomores Simon Holland and Dan Sellers, both 16U AA student athletes, are Silver Spring’s leading defensive scorers with (2GP, 1G, 2A). Senior 18U Upper A Robert Woodward 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. As Richard Montgomery found out last week, getting to the inside to create high quality scoring chances was difficult against the top defense in division two of the Montgomery Hockey Conference.
Offensively, the Lightning coaches figured the team would have a tough time scoring this season. Then, last week happened. Wow! Upper Montgomery’s top line of senior 18U AAA center, Owen Robbins, the team’s captain flanked by fellow senior and last year’s leading scorer Philip Shkeda, paired with ninth grade 16U AA Miles Gleason were DOMINANT. The line scored eight goals in all. They had six early in the second period putting the game into running clock. The coaching staff also began playing all of the depth forwards much more over the second half of the game. Robbins will likely miss the Silver Spring game as he will be out of town with his external travel team. His absence will force the coaching staff to shuffle students bringing about new forward line combinations this week. Both Gleason and Shkeda scored hat-tricks against the Stars. Robbins had a multiple point outing with a goal and multiple assists. He was terrific defensively as well often covering when Berkhammer rushed up ice with the puck. The balance of the forward lines all did their jobs playing more a more defensive style and giving up no goals. Many Upper Montgomery Lightning students either saw their first varsity game action or their most varsity game action against the Stars including Jason Woodman, Jackson Schickler, Max Israfilbek, Wyatt Ostrander, Mason Jagoz, and Tima Zamaray.
The Blazers score by committee as they don’t have that one dominant skater to carry their team. Junior 18U AA William Campbell, Junior 16U AA Mason Boucher, ninth grade 16U AA Foster Miles, and ninth grade Upper A Rodrick Hobbs all have scored two goals in two games. Upper Montgomery is familiar with Boucher from his performance in last year’s Montgomery Hockey Conference Varsity Tournament semifinal where he scored the overtime game winning goal for Blair. Hobbs netted a hat-trick two weeks ago against the Upper Montgomery junior varsity. Campbell made the play on Boucher’s goal with a nifty pass to the slot. So, the Lightning are well versed in what Silver Spring will attempt to do 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 flinging shots on goal with the opponent’s goalie screened. Expect the Silver Spring defense to 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.
Silver Spring will enter the game as a slight favorite, something that they have not been accustomed to for several seasons. Upper Montgomery will not be able to sneak up on the Blazers especially considering last week’s offensive outburst. The game will come down to which team executes more frequently. Can the Blazers shut down Gleason and Shkeda, or will Upper Montgomery’s offensive dynamos be able to carry last week’s effort forward once again? Will Silver Spring’s superior depth pose a problem for Upper Montgomery’s young and inexperienced roster? How well will the Lightning defend in their own zone in front of Stutsrim-Lyons? Which team will win the special teams battle? These questions will dictate which team has the upper hand on Friday evening. All the Lightning care about is finding a way, any way, to come out on top. Pretty hockey it does not need to be, just effective at getting enough pucks into the Blazers’ net to overcome another team favored to beat up on Upper Montgomery.
#Don’t Be A One Hit Wonder, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!