The L/A Fighting Spirit continue to show their scoring depth and ability to wear down opponents in the third period.
On Tuesday afternoon, for the second time in seven days, they defeated in-state rival the Maine Wild 6-2 at Biddeford Ice Arena. Cam DuFault and Dylan Vrees each had two goals and three of their six goals came in the third period.
“We had plenty of scoring opportunities, but we did get some scoring from some different personnel,” Fighting Spirit coach Rod Simmons said. “It goes back to us being deep (and) being able to keep that scoring all the way down the food chain. Hopefully, we can build towards Friday for this with Cape Cod (coming to town) on Friday.”
The victory improves the Fighting Spirit to 12-1-0 in the North American 3 Eastern Hockey League, while the Maine Wild fall to 2-13-0.
Brett Bittner opened the scoring 4:27 in the game with his second goal of the season, with Austin Siering and Thomas Kuntz notching the assists. Nearly nine minutes later, the Wild tied things up when Noel Fischer found the back of the net, while Collin Fader set the goal up.
With 3:31 remaining in the opening period, Alexander Friend found the back of the net to give the Fighting Spirit. Mark Ferullo picked up his third assist in his sixth game with the Fighting Spirit.
The game remained 2-1 until 4:07 remaining in the second period with DuFault for his first of the game. Simon Corriveau picked up the assist.
“Cam (DuFault) does a great job going hard to the net,” Simmons said. “He created some opportunities for us, it was great. Bittner had another good game and defensively our (defensemen) are being pretty smart with the puck trying not to spend a lot of time in the zone.”
Dylan Vrees stretched the Fighting Spirit lead to 4-1, with Colby Siering picking up the helper 2:18 into the third period.
Jordy Knoren cut the Wild deficit in half with a power-play tally, with former Cony standout Zach Gagne and Biddeford standout Matt Jerome notching the helpers at the 7:38 mark.
Vrees picked up the Fighting Spirit’s fifth goal with Nick Hudson getting the assist 9:14 into the period. DuFault scored a power play goal with 6:43 remaining in the game with Corriveau and Mark Ferullo each recording their second assists of the game.
The Fighting Spirit were 1 of 5 on the man advantage while the Wild were 1 of 3.
Claes Endre picked up his sixth win of the year, while Justin Broy who played for Gorham suffered his third loss in three starts.
The Fighting Spirit return to the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Friday to face the Cape Code Islanders for a 7 p.m. puck drop.
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