The Maine Nordiques had no answer for the Johnstown Tomahawks forward John Gelatt.
The 19-year-old had a hat trick and an assist to pace the Tomahawks to a 4-1 win over the Nordiques in a North American Hockey League game Friday afternoon at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee. He also had a goal in Thursday’s 6-2 loss to the Nordiques.
“Maybe (he’s) this year’s version of (Max) Kouznetsov, who used to be a thorn in our side every time we played them,” Nordiques coach Nolan Howe said of Gelatt.
Kouznetsov played at Johnstown last season and has five goals and 10 assists in eight games against the Nordiques.
Brenden Clark had a goal and three assists and Jay Ahearn had two assists Friday.
The win also puts Johnstown (7-3-3, 17 points) in first place in the East Division, while the Nordiques (8-4-0, 16 points) are in second in the division.
Gelatt opened the scoring with just under six minutes remaining in the first period with Brendan Clark setting the goal up.
The game looked to remain 1-0 heading into the final frame, but with under a minute remaining in the second period Clark put the Tomahawks up 2-0 with a power play goal. Jay Ahearn also had an assist on the goal addition to Gelatt.
Howe wasn’t pleased with the the cross-check penalty to Maine commit Tyler Gaulin which led to the goal.
“I think upon further review, I am not necessarily sure that would be deemed a cross-check to put us down another man,” Howe said. “It’s always the tough ones like that that end up back of your net. We put ourselves into a tough situation. Our (penalty kill), even though they gave up one again tonight, they were fantastic. We used some new guys in some different roles.”
Gelatt extended the lead to 3-0 early in the third period.
Maine broke up Sam Evola’s shutout attempt with under four minutes remaining in the game as Cannon Green scored a power play tally with Makem Demers and Tristan Fasig recording the assists.
“We tried to give a push there in the third, but unfortunately we came up short,” Howe said.
The deficit was back to three goals 50 seconds after Green’s goal with Gelatt adding his third tally and Ahearn picking up his second assist of the game.
Evola made 28 saves in the victory while Avery Sturtz made 31 saves in the losing effort.
The Nordiques are scheduled to host the Northeast Generals for four games in six days. The first pair of games are on Dec. 11-12 and the second pair was moved up on the schedule to Dec. 15-16.
“The schedule is very fluid. We knew it going into the season that there were going to be changes made, sometimes day-to-day, depending on (different) scenarios and how things go,” Howe said. “For now we are going to take a day or two off to recover and we will get back to practice on Monday and get ready for whatever comes next week.”
On Friday, Maine Department of Health and Human Services updated the community sports requirements — which the state says junior hockey is a a part of — and added the requirements apply to venues that host community sports such as ice rinks and municipal buildings. The requirements allow skilled based drills and skills to begin Dec. 7, practices beginning on Jan. 4 and games on Jan. 11.
The Nordiques were originally supposed to go down to Attleboro, Massachusetts on Dec. 18-19 but after playing the first game of a two-game set in Attleboro, the second game was postponed due to Massachusetts-based teams not being able to host out-of-state teams.
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