The Twin City Thunder’s National Collegiate Development Conference team earned a 5-3 victory over the Islanders Hockey Club on Friday on the campus of Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts.
Twin City improves to 2-0 in the three-day Islanders HC showcase.
Special teams again played a pivotal role for the Thunder, who went 2-for-3 on the power play.
“We talked about special teams and the importance of that,” Thunder coach Doug Friedman said. “They were real big, (Islanders HC) have a solid goalie and a good penalty kill.”
The Thunder (10-8) got off to another fast start, jumping out to a 2-0 lead. Christian Blomquist scored in his third straight game, and just before the halfway mark of the opening period, Daniels Murnieks notched his fourth goal of the season for a 2-0 Twin City advantage.
The Islanders (8-12) cut the deficit in half when Patriks Marcinkevics notched his seventh goal of the season.
Blomquist restored the Thunder’s two-goal lead early in the second period on the man advantage. The 18-year-old from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, leads Twin City with eight goals.
“For him to be an effective player, he has to be close to the net,” Friedman said of Blomquist. “He’s a big body, he’s tough to move and he’s a good finisher. He’s doing a good job getting where he needs to be and in position for an opportunity.”
The Islanders HC dug themselves out of the hole with goals by Connor Gatto and Nicholas Niemo that tied the game at 3-3.
Andrew Kurapov snapped his 13-game goal-less streak to give the Thunder a 4-3 lead. The Thunder restored a two-goal when Nick Rashkovsky scored on the power play right before the second-period buzzer.
“Those guys and that line, in general, they create so much opportunity,” Friedman said. “They do so much offensively, it just doesn’t get in the back of the net for them. It’s always nice to see guys find the back of the net when they are having a hard time. I give those guys credit, too, they have kept it positive, they are doing a lot of little things that it takes to find success.”
Twin City killed off four penalties in the third period, during which the Islanders HC outshot the Thunder 20-10.
Thunder goalie Artur Ogandzhanyan made 41 saves in the victory, while Kalle Andersson stopped 30 shots for Islanders HC.
“The Islanders are a very strong team. They have small, fast forwards that are very creative, and they do a good job transiting pucks east-to-west on the ice and getting scoring chances out of it,” Friedman said. “It forced us to make sure we were back-checking hard, and Artur did a real good job of moving east-to-west to pick up those shots.”
The Thunder’s final game at the showcase is Saturday at 9:30 a.m. contest against the last-place Rochester Monarchs (0-16).
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.