JOHNSTOWN – The Johnstown Tomahawks were defeated on Friday night against the NAHL East Divisions’ 2nd place Maine Nordiques by a score of 1-0, to drop the first game of the weekend.
Friday Nights action got off to a pretty slow start with only one shot on goal in the opening five minutes and was from a Nordiques stick. After 10 minutes of play the Tomahawks had only one shot to their credit.
Just past the midway mark, the Hawks earned themselves a 2-on-1 break and nearly capped off a beautiful passing play, but Maine goaltender Carter Richardson slid across and made a tremendous split save to rob the Hawks from grabbing the early lead.
With just under five minutes to play in the 1st, Maine would grab the first goal of the game off of one of the strangest puck bounces you will ever see. The original Nordiques point shot ended up ricocheting off of three separate players and eventually made its way up and over Tomahawks goaltender Zack Ferris, seemingly without him knowing and found its way into the back of the net.
An overall good 1st period came to a close for the Tomahawks, but the scoreboard was unforgiving. The Hawks actually held a 10-6 shot advantage heading to the intermission but found themselves down one where it actually matters.
To begin the 2nd period, a lot of back-and-forth action ensued with only one grade A chance between the two teams and this time it was Zack Ferris coming up with his own robbery. Shutting down the Nordiques’ backdoor chance to keep the deficit at just one, after the first minute of play.
Although the goals were nowhere to be found after roughly 30 minutes, the pace of play was extremely high, and a lot of good hockey was being played from both sides. Maine definitely controlled the first 10 minutes, but the Tomahawks were starting to generate an abundance of chances as the period wore on, but the Nordiques goaltender remained standing on his head to keep the lead intact.
Some pretty physical play closed out the period and the score stayed at 1-0 with the Hawks now nearly doubling up the Nordiques in shots by a total of 19-10.
After 40 minutes of some of their most balanced hockey of the season, the Tomahawks found themselves very much in this one just down a goal.
They started the 3rd in the right way also, putting lots of pressure on the hot Nordiques goaltender just trying to see if one will find its way through and shoot some energy into the building.
With just about 14:00 minutes to play, the Tomahawks were given a golden opportunity to tie the game on the power-play, but Maine put on a penalty killing clinic barely letting the Hawks enter the offensive zone.
With just about seven minutes to play the Tomahawks generated a backdoor chance that almost duplicated the one from the 1st period, but once again Richardson came across to deny. The game started to become a track meet for a minute or two following the chance with a thrilling Maine scoring opportunity but to no result and it remained 1-0.
After an extremely low-scoring and “uneventful” contest, the final five minutes were nothing short of on the edge of your seat hockey. The Tomahawks were threatening to tie the game for what seemed like the last two straight minutes after pulling Ferris for an extra attacker.
Ultimately, the Tomahawks ran into a hot goalie and in the sport of hockey, you can play a near perfect game and run into a goalie who is locked in on his game and there isn’t much that can be done about it. It was certainly not an effort to be disappointed about, holding the Nordiques to just 13 shots total for the entirety of the game, giving themselves a strong sense of confidence heading into tomorrow.
The Johnstown Tomahawks will look to split the series tomorrow evening against the same Nordiques team at 5:00 PM on Saturday, January 11th. Don’t miss out on the excitement and get your weekend plans started with the Johnstown Tomahawks! Secure your tickets and explore all of our future promotions at www.johnstowntomahawks.com.
By DREW P. PFEIL | drew@johnstowntomahawks.com