Thunder battling for points in tight ECHL race

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. – If this was a horse race it might go down as one of the greatest of all time.

A third of the way into the season, the Newfoundland Growlers hold a comfortable sevenpoint lead in the ECHL’s North Division standings, while just five points separate the next six teams, including the third-place Thunder.

Adirondack (13- 9-2-2) brings a four-game winless streak into this weekend’s action, but can turn things around with victories Friday at Worcester, and home against the Brampton Beast on Saturday (7 p.m.)

“The good part about this unfortunate skid that we’re going through right now is that we have been successful,” said forward Nikolas Olsson. “We know what to do. I think we can get back to that level. Just having that in our back pocket is a really good tool to have, it’s a good asset.”

The Thunder started the season 10-2 before losing five of their next six contests. Home ice hasn’t been much help of late, either, as they’ve dropped four straight Saturday night games in Glens Falls, in extremely frustrating fashion.

Two weeks ago, Adirondack let Brampton tie the game with 6.4 seconds left in regulation before falling, 5- 4, in overtime. Last Saturday, Manchester knotted the score with just over three minutes to play and then went to beat the Thunder, 2-1, in OT.

Adirondack found the net just three times during last weekend’s two games. “Obviously we haven’t been scoring a ton of goals,” said defenseman Desmond Bergin.

“Those games can change if we start putting a couple more pucks in the net and take some pressure off our goalie. The whole team is responsible for helping to score goals.”

But the lack of offensive contributions from Thunder defensemen might be the team’s most glaring deficiency to date. Every team typically has at least one or two blueliners that can be counted on to put opposing goaltenders to the test.

So far, 11 different defensemen have taken the ice for Adirondack and only five have scored a goal, led by Bergin’s four. The Thunder

have the second fewest goals in the division (80) and defensemen have recorded only nine of them.

Adirondack is 3- 0- 0-1 against Friday’s opponent, Worcester, but Coach Alex Loh isn’t taking themlightly. “They keep it simple,” he said. “They’re a solid, structured hockey team.”

Saturday’s foe, Brampton, has given the Thunder fits this season as they’re just 1-3-1 against the Beast.

“We’ve just got to keep working hard and I think bounces will start going our way, so we can go on another roll here,” forward Matt Salhany said.