The Adirondack Thunder and Worcester Railers met for the second time in three days, this time in Glens Falls, NY, in front of the second-largest regular-season crowd in Thunder history. It wouldn’t take long for the party to get started as Darian Skeoch and Kolby Johnson dropped the gloves just eight seconds after the opening faceoff. Worcester would get on the board first, as Lincoln Hatten would clean up a rebound in front of David Fessenden and give the Railers a 1-0 lead less than three minutes in. Adirondack, who has struggled this season in the first period, would bounce back as Andre Ghantous took a weak shot through traffic that would beat Michael Bullion and tie the game up at one. Ryan Francis has been on a tear since joining the Thunder and would score his fourth goal in four games with Adirondack to give them a 2-1 lead, and 1:28 later; it would be T.J. Friedmann who made it 3-1 on a beautiful back-handed goal in front of the net.
“Ya, I just took a little bit of time off to recoup and I’m happy to be back. It’s good to be back, I like this city, I like these teammates and I’ve had fun the first four games, I’m enjoying it and keep building thaty up”
Ryan Francis when asked about his absense at the beginning of the regular season
In the second, the gloves would drop once again as Mason Klee and Tag Bertuzzi dropped the gloves at the 2:11 mark. However, Bertuzzi would be given a game misconduct for not having his jersey tied down, and to add injury to insult, it appears as if he’s also suffered a longer-term upper-body injury and has already been ruled out for Friday’s game vs Trois-Rivieres Lions. Adirondack would get just three shots on goal in the second, but one of them came off the stick of Josh Filmon, and it was 4-1 Adirondack. Worcester would be gifted a goal as David Fessenden misplayed the puck, and it would Hatten would find the back of the net for his second of the game and give the Railers a giant momentum boost. Worcester would add two more goals before the end of the period as Jordan Kaplan would feed Mason Klee at the 13:41 mark, and then it would be Jordan Kaplan who scored his third PP goal in the last two games against the Thunder as we’d head to the third period tied up at four.
“It’s a mometum game, as soon as we lose the momentum we weren’t playing as well, they get the bounce on the powerplay and penalty kill goal and we never got the momentum back. I thought there were some soft calls in the third period for sure but we gotta find a way to get kill penalties and get the momentum back.”
In the third, the special teams, along with Jordan Kaplan, killed the Thunder as he added a PP goal at the 4:27 mark and 11:15 mark to complete the natural hattrick with all three of his goals on the night coming on the PP as he now has six goals and two assists for eight points in three games against his former team. The Thunder would make things interesting as Ryan Dickinson would be assessed a major penalty for interference and a game misconduct at the 14:09 mark of the period as the Thunder got a huge chance to get themselves back in the game. Dylan Wendt would find the back of the net at the 16:05 mark of the third to make it a one-goal game, and that’s as close as Adirondack would get as they would lose 6-5 as the team came away with just one win on home ice in December.
“Ya, it’s pretty good. Our powerplay has been struggling in the past and we’ve cleaned up some things prior to this weekend and thing you saw tonight we were snapping it around pretty good and I was just the beneficiary of the that and it was nice”
Jordan Kaplan on his hattrick
Adirondack will now have three days off before they kick off 2025 at home against Trois-Rivieres before heading to Trois-Rivieres for games on Saturday and Sunday. Adirondack will be without Patrick Polino, who was suspended by the team on Tuesday, and Tag Bertuzzi, who reportedly dislocated his shoulder in his fight against Mason Klee.
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