PORTLAND, ME – March 16, 2022 – The Mariners got a much needed win over the Adirondack Thunder on Wednesday night at the Cross Insurance Arena, bringing an end to a three-game losing streak with a 5-3 victory. An flurry of early second period goals pushed the Mariners in front and they never looked back.
The team traded goals in the opening period, with both tallies coming in the final six minutes of the frame. Colin Long got the Thunder on the board first at 14:34, fed by Jordan Kaplan. With under a minute to go, Brendan Robbins followed Cam Askew into the zone and wristed a shot past the glove of Alex Sakellaropoulos to send the game into the first intermission even at one.
Three combined goals were scored in the first 5:15 of the second period. At the 3:15 mark, Nick Jermain came up with a steal at the Mariners blue line and skated in on a breakaway, putting a backhander under the crossbar to give Maine its first lead of the night. Less than a minute later, the Thunder capitalized on a mistake by Mariners netminder Jeremy Brodeur and Patrick Grasso made it 2-2. Just 1:10 later, Keltie Jeri-Leon’s redirect of Nate Kallen’s shot put the Mariners back in front. That would be it for the scoring in the middle frame, as the Mariners carried the 3-2 lead into the third.
Early in the third, Nick Master scored an insurance goal, when he grabbed a rebound off the pad of Sakellaropoulos at 3:03. Marc-Olivier Duquette, who took the initial shot, registered his fourth point in the last five games. Brodeur made several key stops to keep the lead at 4-2, until the very closing moments when the Thunder got a power play and Shane Harper ripped a one-timer from the left-wing circle off the post and in to cut the deficit back to one with 56 seconds left. Adirondack never mounted a serious threat to tie the game however, and Zach Malatesta’s long clear hit the empty net with three seconds left to seal the 5-3 victory.
Brodeur stopped 27 of 30 to earn his 16th win of the season in his first game back from a recall to AHL Providence. Sakellaropoulos stopped 34 of 38 in the loss.
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