The Maine Nordiques and the Maryland Black Bears opened up a crucial series Friday at the Piney Orchard Ice Arena in Odenton, Maryland.
Maryland took the first game 4-2 Friday night between the top two teams in the NAHL East Division.
With the win, the Black Bears (23-6-5, 51 points) are within one point of the Nordiques (24-7-4, 52 points) for first place in the division.
Maine Nordiques coach Nick Skerlick said the series has importance for the Top Prospects Tournament for uncommitted players in February because the first-place team in the division gets an extra player selected that the second-place team doesn’t earn.
“It’s a lot of pressure — tomorrow is the cutoff date for the Top Prospect Tournament, that decides one player,” Skerlick said. “So, if we don’t win tomorrow, one player won’t get to go to the Top Prospects. We are stressing that more than the first place.”
After Shane Kozlina scored late in the first stanza for Maine, Maryland scored four unanswered goals in the second and third periods.
“You score a goal, and you come out really well for 10 (minutes into the second period), and you play bad for 10 (minutes),” Skerlick said. “You have to find resilience in the group in the room. The guys were off tonight, but it’s really frustrating because you only play these guys four times and everybody knows it will be us or them for first place in the division.”
Luke Janus tied the game midway through the second and Jesse Horacek scored the go-ahead goal in the final two minutes of the frame.
Kareem El Bashir gave the Black Bears a two-goal lead early in the third when the puck found its way past Maine goalie Thomas Heaney.
Dylan Gordon scored seven minutes into the final period, pushing the lead to 4-1.
“Mental battles, we lost. We lost mental detail battles, we lost details, we lost everything,” Skerlick said.
Cole Hipkin scored the Nordiques’ second goal when the puck got behind Maryland goalie Owen Lepak just before the buzzer.
The teams meet again on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
“I think the mistakes are very correctable, but I question, they beat us really bad tonight in terms of will,” Skerlick said. “You do feel as a coach if the guys lost both games in one effort. We know that’s not the case, but we can do really well for ourselves in that regard and put this one behind us. I am super intrigued for tomorrow night.”
HELLEDY HONORED BY NAHL
Second-year defenseman David Helledy was named the NAHL’s Defenseman of the Month on Friday.
The 20-year-old had two goals and 10 assists in the month and is second among all NAHL defensemen with six goals and 27 assists in 34 games.
“He earned it, but I didn’t see that much tonight; he struggled big time tonight,” Skerlick said. “Hopefully, he got brought down to earth and repeat for Defenseman of the Month starting tomorrow.”
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