November 16, 2013

The Philadelphia Little Flyers and the New Hampshire Jr. Monarchs met for the first time this season.   The Monarchs approach this game with an impressive 14-3 record, while the Flyers sit at 8-4-1-1.  It will be an interesting matchup, especially in terms of special teams play.  New Hampshire boasts the highest ranked powerplay in the league converting on 25.4% of their opportunities, while Philadelphia holds the number one ranked penalty kill in the league keeping their opponents off the score sheet 94.0% of the time when short-handed. 

The Little Flyers offense shined out of the gate, as Oleg Potemkin opened the scoring only a few minutes into the game as his wrist shot just made it past the glove of Jake Theut.  Jesse MacIntyre, who leads the team in goals, netted his eleventh of the year off a nice feed from Zach Felser, to extend the Little Flyers lead to two.  In their first attempt on the powerplay, Little Flyers’ forward Hector Majul netted his first of the year to give his team a 3-0 lead going into the second period.

The second period started well for the Little Flyers as they increased their lead to 4-0 early as a result of a beautiful passing play from Felser to Majul to Gielarowski. Gielarowski’s goal chased starting netminder Jake Theut back to the bench, in favor of Brendan Cain.  From that point on the Monarchs took charge as the tables turned.  Ryan Gandy put the Monarchs on the board with his 7^th goal of the season, which was followed up by Oleg Hayduk who snuck one past Alec Derks to cut the Flyers lead in half. 

The third period was dominated by the Monarhs as well, Cam Owens cut the lead to one on the powerplay.  The Monarchs had 4 chances on the power play and 21 shots on goal, but good penalty killing and Alecs Derks being, well, Alec Derks prevented all opportunities including a last minute 6-on-4 penalty kill.

Coach Russo commented after the game, “I think we came out excited, and it showed early when Oleg [Potemkin] put us on the board, and throughout the first.  I think from the fourth goal on we sat back a bit and we’re not happy with the overall effort, but a win against a well coached, first place team like the Monarchs is big.  Derks played really well, and this is a big team win.”

Brian Forrest