Twin City Thunder forward Christian Blomquist, center, attempts to receive a pass in front of the net next to South Shore Kings goalie Eric Voloshin, left, and Alex Carrothers, right. South Shore spoiled the Thunder’s home opener Saturday night, winning 2-0. RAM Sports photography
AUBURN — The Twin City Thunder couldn’t convert its power play opportunities and fell 2-0 to the South Shore Kings on Saturday in the Thunder’s National Collegiate Development Conference team’s home opener at Norway Savings Bank Arena.
The Thunder had two five-minute major power plays that went fruitless.
“Our power play was (crap),” Twin City Thunder coach Doug Friedman said. “It was absolute (crap) and the guys know it.
“Again, we are going to spend a lot of time on it. We have been. It’s early in the season, if it doesn’t get better, we will find some guys that will make it better.”
The Thunder were 0-for-6 with the man advantage, while South Shore went 1-for-5.
Tommaso Alvera scored both goals for the Kings and goalie Erik Voloshin made 38 saves for the shutout.
“We have a fantastic penalty kill, so I am never worried,” Voloshin said. “Obviously, you don’t want to take as many penalties as we did tonight, but every time we are on the kill, I feel confident we will get out of there (unscathed).”
The Thunder had the first chance to get on the board when South Shore’s Connor Lind was called for an elbowing major 6:34 into the game. But Twin City’s power play couldn’t do much with the extended man advantage.
South Shore, meanwhile, struck on its first power play of the game, as Alvera found the back of the cage with under seven minutes remaining the period.
“Tommaso Alvera has been an unbelievable player for us,” Kings coach Drew Omicioli said. “He scored both goals tonight. The first one was a great goal and it gave us some confidence killing a bunch of penalties. We killed nine minutes in the first period.”
“They made a good play, they found a seam in our PK there,” Friedman said. “We made some power play adjustments throughout the game. Our guys, again, they weren’t executing and a lot of times we were getting outworked on the penalty kill.”
Twin City couldn’t convert on its other two power plays of the period.
Twin City’s Christian Blomquist was called for roughing with 28 seconds remaining the opening period, but the Thunder were able to kill the penalty off to start the second period.
Martin Moioffer had the Thunder’s best scoring chance in the period when, late in a shift, he chipped the puck past two Kings defenders in the neutral zone and created separation. However, he lost control of the puck in the offensive zone and wasn’t able to get off a solid shot.
“Our guy back-checked hard. It made it pretty easy for me to know (Moioffer) has one side (of the net) to go to,” Voloshin said. “I just (had) to meet him there.”
Alvera made it 2-0 early in the third period.
Dmytro Danylenko had the Kings’ second five-minute major for contact to the head, which also included a 10-minute misconduct. The penalty came with about eight minutes remaining in the game.
The Thunder had 14 shots in the third period.
“Our focus was trying to get good puck movement and attack the net to get shots,” Friedman said. “We had a hard time executing that, it hurt us.
Goalie Artur Ohandzhanian made 29 saves for the Thunder.
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