The L/A Fighting Spirit’s perfect start to the season continued Friday night — barely.
Dylan Vrees converted a feed from Simon Corriveau with 4:44 to play in regulation to lift the Fighting Spirit to a 3-2 win over the Cape Cod Islanders at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Friday.
“This time of year, you’re just trying to find the right character, the right guys to finish the games off and earn some wins,” L/A coach Rod Simmons said. “We were short a few bodies (Friday), so pull this one out was a good one for us.”
The win is the team’s fifth of the season.
The Spirit were missing Austin Siering, who is suspended after a hit in Sunday’s game. They were also missing a player due to an injury suffered in practice, and another because he was stuck in Massachusetts after reporting for National Guard duty.
“It was kind of a hodgepodge of things,” Simmons said. “The fact that we still were able to get the win against the other team at the top of the standings with us was good.”
Claes Endre made the late lead stand up between the pipes, earning the victory for the Fighting Spirit.
“Claes played really well, so did (Mike) Heffernan and (David) Fish,” Simmons said. “Our three returning guys really led the way.”
L/A got on the board first in the opening frame on a Heffernan goal. Fish and Vrees assisted on the power play marker at 10:36.
Cape Cod tied the game at 2:29 of the second on a Mike Jesseman strike, and the Fighting Spirit regained the one-goal advantage five minutes later on a Walker Hamilton goal.
Trying to hold on to that lead, the Spirit went to the penalty box midway through the third.
“They had a player, he earned two calls for them, he was very creative with the stick under his arm,” Simmons said. “That’s no excuse, though. Our defensemen need to know better than to put the stick in that position in the first place. That happens. we have three young ‘D’ back there we were giving a lot of time to.”
On the ensuing power play, Aaron Deady knotted the game at 2-2 with help from Maxime Dordet.
L/A is back on the ice Saturday against the Northeast Generals at 7 p.m.
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