The L/A Fighting Spirit have stressed putting the pedal to the metal in the third period this season.
Friday night, the Spirit put the pedal to the floor in the opening two minutes with two goals and they went on to a 4-0 victory over the Maine Wild at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
“It’s something we have been talking with our team about quite a bit, as of late,” Fighting Spirit assistant coach Cam Robichaud said of the quick start. “We’ve had quite a bit of success this year, but we haven’t been extremely happy with our starts of our periods, whether it’s the first, second or third. I was real excited to see us get out to a quick lead.”
Robichaud is currently acting as the head coach as head coach Rod Simmons tends to a family matter.
The win improves the Fighting Spirit’s record to 14-1 on the season, while the Wild falls to 3-15 in NA3EHL action.
The scoring started 62 seconds into the contest when Alexander Friend found the back of the net with Mark Ferullo and Walker Hamilton adding assists. Ferullo also set up the second goal 34 seconds later when he found Hamilton, who notched his fifth goal of the season. Brett Bittner was also given credit with an assist.
In the second period, the Fighting Spirit pounced with a shorthanded goal when Colby Siering potted his 10th of the season, with Dylan Vrees notching the lone assist at the 3:43 mark. Siering returned the favor in the third period as Vrees notched his 10th goal of the season. That goal came with 4:21 remaining in the game.
Zach Barry stopped all 12 shots he faced for his fourth shutout of the season. Robson Stewart stopped 40 shots for the Wild.
“He didn’t have a ton of shots, I will say he had three very big saves today,” Robichaud said. “That was a point in the game where it was only 2-0, so very easily the Maine Wild could have jumped back in the game to make it 2-1 if he hadn’t made those big saves.”
The Fighting Spirit were 0-for-4 on the man advantage while Maine was scoreless on its five chances.
L/A travels to Cape Cod on Saturday to face the Islanders at 5:30 p.m.
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