ECHL: Adirondack Thunder 2024-25 Mid-Season Report Card

We’ve officially hit the ECHL All-Star Break, and the Adirondack Thunder have played 34 games and a record of 13-19-1-1 and sit in last place in the North Divison. Injuries were one of the biggest things that plagued the Thunder in the first half. However, the team is slowly starting to get healthier as for Adirondack, the only way they can go right now is up. Despite the poor record, Adirondack is just ten points behind the Worcester Railers for the fourth and final playoff position with four games in hand. The Thunder have played the least amount of games in the North Division so far.

“Get Healthy”

Head Coach Pete MacArthur when talking about what Adirondack needs to do in the second half to have a chance at the Kelly Cup Playoffs

Offense (C+)

There’s no doubt that coming into this season, there were some holes to fill with Patrick Grasso and Yushiro Hirano heading overseas. Tristan Ashbrook getting traded to the Cincinnati Cyclones, and Shane Harper not playing professional hockey so far during the 2024-25 season. Head Coach Pete MacArthur did his best to try to fill some of those holes by bringing back Ryan Smith and Alex Young, as well as acquiring Tag Bertuzzi and Patrick Polino via trades. He also would sign Ryan Francis, who missed the first month of the season before finally joining the team. Francis has five goals and three assists for eight points in eight games.

There’s no question that injuries have killed this team early in the year as they’ve lost Tag Bertuzzi long-term and have been without Alex Young for the last two weeks, as he’s been a bright spot for Adirondack this season. Young has eight goals and 12 assists for 20 points in 29 games in his first full season with Adirondack.

Despite all of this, there have been some bright spots. Kevin O’Neil currently leads the team with 27 points (8g,19a). Andre Ghantous, who had a slow start to the season, now leads the Thunder with 10 goals in 34 games. If Adirondack can get healthy, they should be a team that could make a surprising run towards the end of the season.

Defense (D)

The defensive core for the Thunder has certainly had its issues this season after getting spoiled last year with Colin Felix, Will McKinnon, and Matt Stief. During the 2023-24 season, Adirondack used 15 defencemen this year. So far, they’ve used 11. Adirondack is currently 13th in the league in goals against (29.06) but is 26th in goals allowed (3.68). The Thunder also haven’t been able to get a look at Taylor Ford, who’s been limited to just six games but has just one assist.

“He’s done a great job putting the puck in the back of net for us this year and most importantley defensivley, moving his feet, playing super hard, being a menace at the net front, and getting into guys when he can so he’s been great all year and hopefully he continues”

Assistant Coach Mike Bergin on the play of Ryan Conroy

One of the other factors is that Adirondack isn’t getting much offensive production from the blue line. Ryan Conroy has been the only consistent production from the blue line, with six goals and six assists for 12 points in 33 games. Brendan Less, who’s missed time with injuries this season, has a goal and six assists in 16 games this season, and hopefully, for Adirondack, they can get him going defensively to help out Conroy. If there’s any place where Adirondack needs to add, it wouldn’t hurt to go out and find an offensive defenseman.

Goaltending (D+)

The goaltending this year has been atrocious, to say the least. All three goaltenders this season have an SV % less than .900%, and all have a GAA of at least three. However, the defense hasn’t been much help in front of them this season. It’s not that they are giving up a ton of shots. It’s that the shots they are giving up are high-quality chances to their opponents, as the Thunder are giving up just over 29 shots a game to opponents, which is 12th in the league.

Tyler Brennan (4-8-0-1, 4.00 GAA, .865SV%, and one shutout)- It’s been a struggle for the former fourth-round pick of the Thunder as he’s had his ups and downs. However, the downs have outweighed the ups this season. One of the biggest things we have to remember is that Brennan missed most of his rookie season with a knee injury.

David Fessenden (2-5-1, 3.23 GAA, .874SV%)- There is a fair argument that Fessenden should be the #2 goalie on the Thunder depth chart behind Jeremy Brodeur. The 26-year-old goaltender has played some solid hockey except for two games where he gave up six goals. Fessenden’s first game didn’t come till December 7th, when he would win his first ECHL game, and he had no problem dropping the gloves with Keith Petruzzeli. Heading into the second half of the season, it will be interesting to see how much Pete MacArthur decides to utilize Fessenden if he has Brodeur and Brennan both available to him, as that’s been the Thunder’s 1-2 punch between the pipes this season.

Jeremy Brodeur– (7-6, 3.11 GAA, .898%, and one shutout)- This year hasn’t started off the way the Thunder had hoped, and early on in the season, Jeremy Brodeur was the glue that was keeping this team somewhat together and keeping them in games. It showed as when Brodeur made his latest stint in Utica, as the Thunder would lose seven straight games without him on the roster. As long as Brodeur is healthy and in Adirondack, I would expect him to get the majority of the starts for Adirondack moving forward as they look to attempt to climb themselves back into the Kelly Cup Playoff race.

Special Teams (D)

There has been nothing special about either one of the Thunder special teams, as they are ranked 27th in the league on both the PP and the PK and have the worst home PK in the league (69.2%). On the PP, it appears as if they have two problems: one, they can’t get anything going, and once they do get something going, they are always looking to make the perfect pass. However, there is one bright side to the special teams, as Adirondack is tied with the Savannah Ghost Pirates for seven short-handed goals this year. Kevin O’Neil leads the league with three short-handed assists.

Final Grade (C-)

It isn’t a shock that things haven’t gone as expected for Adirondack so far, but there are some small glimmers of hope. Jeremy Brodeur is back in Glens Falls, and hopefully, he can help get the Thunder back on track. A couple more faces are returning to the lineup soon. Despite the current eight-game losing streak, the team has liked what they saw in their past two home games, and hopefully, they can start to build up some momentum here soon.