WORCESTER– The Adirondack Thunder have once again begun the season on the wrong track after an opening night loss to the Worcester Railers, who have now won six straight opening night games. Slow starts hurt the Thunder last season, and that would be the storyline again tonight as Quinn Ryan got a breakaway and beat Tyler Brennan on a back-handed shot just over three minutes after the opening draw. It wouldn’t take the Railers long to double their lead as Ashton Calder would crash the net and, get his stick on the puck, and get it past Brennan just 28 seconds after the Ryan goal. It went from bad to worse for the Thunder as Will McKinnon would get his stick on a puck, but it would end up behind his own goal, putting them down three. Adirondack desperately needed them to get on the board, and they would get that as Ryan Smith took a shot that would somehow get past Henri Tikkanen to put Adirondack on the board before the end of the first.
The Thunder would have a much better start to the second period while Tyler Brennan bounced back, making some saves after giving up three goals that weren’t his fault early in his first career start, as he finished the game, stopping 24 of the 27 shots that came his way. “Those first two goals he couldn’t do anything, then that our d unfortunately hit it into our own net. It wasn’t on him, and he kept us in it in during major moments when he was able to stand on his head, which allowed us to gain momentum; he played an awesome game, and I’m super proud of him, and hopefully, he can run with it.”
One of the main concerns for the Thunder should be their PP, which went 0-6 during Friday Night’s pre-season game, and the struggles continued into the regular season as the Thunder went 0-5 in their loss to the Railers, but they did kill off all three penalties they committed, “Special teams is overall very import to us, it’s important to getting wins, our PK was pretty good tonight and our PP was good at moments, but we gotta compete the whole two minutes to get momentum whether that’s scoring or not scoring” said Bergin. It would be a short-handed goal from newly named captain Patrick Grasso that would put the Thunder within striking distance. However, that’s as close as they would get. Jake Pivonka and Anthony Repaci would both score empty netters as the Railers would steam on to a 5-2 victory.
Head Coach Pete MacArthur didn’t make the trip to Worcester, so Mike Bergin took over the coaching duties and talked about how the scoreboard didn’t tell the whole story, “Overall, I think the game didn’t indicate what the score was, we got off to a slow start obviously a couple major breakdowns early, and we’re chasing the eight-ball, it’s just about getting about getting a better start and playing a full 60, as you see once we got going there you so we kind of team we have, and I’m super excited about it.”
