The Adirondack Thunder began a seven-game homestand on Wednesday Night vs Reading Royals, and they started off on the right foot as Patrick Grasso opened the scoring at the 13:53 mark of the opening frame as he was looking to pass the puck, but it deflected off a Royals stick and ended up past Nolan Maier, for Grasso he tied James Henry for second in Franchise goals with 69, “It means a lot, personal accolades are always nice but I think we have a really special good and I’m just really excited about what we are doing as a team right now, we’re taking this one game at a time and I think we’re taking steps every night to show people what we can do” said Grasso. Reading responded less than five minutes later as they got a two-on-one as Joseph Nardi would feed Yvan Mongo, who found the back of the net to tie the game up at one after 20.
Adirondack hasn’t gotten much production from the blueline, but it would be Ryan Orgel who skated in and took a shot that found the back of the net, and then with just 15 seconds left in the second, Colin Felix scored his first goal of the season, which came against his former team, “Ya, absolutely, it’s nice to face your team from last year, and it’s even better getting a goal against them” said Felix. Adirondack had yet to score on the PP at home, but that was until Yushiro Hirano scored on a 5 on 3 for his fourth of the season, and Erik Middendorf would add his seventh of the goal before the final whistle as the Thunder would win 5-1 as Shane Harper added two assists and is starting to feel good on the ice after announcing his return to the Thunder, “I think I felt the best that I have so far, I figured it would take a few weeks” Harper added, It’s fun when you win, and I’m having a blast” said Harper
Tyler Brennan picked up the first win of his pro career as he stopped 27 of 28 shots after giving up three goals on six shots in his last game when he pulled less than five minutes into the game, “It feels great; I’ve been looking forward to it for the two games before this now, the team played unbelievably for me, there’s a lot to look forward to with this team when we play our game” Brennan, The Devils fourth-round pick in 2022, talked about how big of a win this was for the fans as well, “Fans needed a win, and everyone came out, and we got the job done so it’s awesome to give the fans a win” said Brennan.
Head Coach Pete MacArthur was very impressed with the team’s performance today but, despite results, mentioned that they had played well at home “Ya, happy with the effort; like I’ve said before, we’ve only played one bad period at home this year, other than that, I think we’ve played pretty well unfortunately, winning and losing is a funny thing sometimes, and we definitely deserved to win that game, it’s nice to see Brennan bounce back and play well, it’s nice to see Fees {Felix} play well against his old team, it’s nice to see Grass {Grasso} climb the leader board as he should, so ya it was a good night for us before Thanksgiving” MacArthur
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