Powell's two goals helps Merrimack complete weekend sweep with win over Long Island
Merrimack 4, Long Island 2
NORTH ANDOVER — The Warriors closed out the first half of the season by winning the season series with Long Island and completing a weekend sweep of LIU and Yale with a 4-2 win over the Sharks at Lawler Arena on Saturday night.
“It’s funny,” Merrimack coach Scott Borek said, “a friend of mine told me going into the weekend, ‘it’s a good opportunity to go win two games and show the league that we have a good team still,’ and I agreed. I said, ‘yeah, let’s do that,’ and getting those wins is huge for us. Getting both of them was really important.”
It hasn’t been an easy first half. The Warriors enter the break at 7-10 (7-9 in regulation) and feel they were close to getting over the hump in several early-season games, including third-period leads that slipped away against BU, Providence, and Notre Dame.
It’s a group that doesn’t feel far off from being 9-8 — or even having its record flipped to 10-7.
It’s difficult to play the “what if” game, and not to rub salt in the wound, but had the Warriors closed out Notre Dame — a game in which they held a 3-1 lead in the third period — and beaten LIU at home on Oct. 25, two perfectly reasonable results, Merrimack would be 9-8 at the break and No. 21 in the NPI rankings.
That’s tough to read, but it underscores just how close the Warriors have been to getting over the hump — and how thin the margin can be.
They had to find a way get over a hump on Saturday, and did. The Sharks carried 1-0 and 2-1 leads, the latter standing after one period, before the Warriors stormed back with two goals in the second to take control. Parker Lalonde added an insurance marker late in the third period.
“It was a tough game,” Borek said. “It was a tough weekend for our guys. We have a lot going on with finals and in the game we had a bad start. I was really pleased with the way we responded in the second and third period. That got us what we needed to have and at the end of the day, how you play matters, but winning or losing is all that matters.”
Seamus Powell scored his first two goals of the season for the Warriors, tying the game twice. He answered an early LIU goal by JR Perdion in the first period, then struck again in the second after Jaden Dyke had given the Sharks a late lead before intermission.
Powell finished the night with three points (two goals, one assist), matching the output of Trevor Hoskin, who recorded three assists.
Merrimack’s back end comes up big while shorthanded
Merrimack defenseman Filip Nordberg was assessed a cross-checking major and a game misconduct early in the second period, thinning the Warriors’ blue line to just five players for the remainder of the night.
It marked the first time all season Merrimack did not dress an extra defenseman, opting instead to carry an additional forward in the lineup.
The Warriors killed off the five-minute major, with Seamus Powell, Ethan Beyer, Cam Kungle, Nathan King, and Austin Oravetz logging the final 36 minutes a man short on the back end.
“It was a huge effort by those guys,” Merrimack coach Scott Borek said. “Of course, it’s the first time all year we decided to not play seven defensemen. But the other five guys played more of a basic game after that, which was what we needed there, and they did a really nice job.
“I think that simplified things for our forwards and made them play smarter. We needed to play a more ‘get the puck deep’ type of game because we didn’t want our D to have to turn around to chase pucks all night.”
That extended penalty kill felt like a turning point. The Sharks held a 2-1 lead at the time, and another goal could have been a back-breaker. Instead, the Warriors limited LIU to just four shots during the five-minute span.
“That penalty kill might have pushed our game and got us a win,” Borek said. “Their power play is really good and they move the puck well. Getting through that was huge, and Max made some nice saves there as well.”
Notes
Merrimack controlled the faceoff circle, winning draws by a 38-26 margin. Every player who took seven or more faceoffs finished the night on the plus side.
With Filip Nordberg limited to just nine minutes before his game misconduct, the remaining defensemen saw their workloads spike. Seamus Powell logged more than 26 minutes, Austin Oravetz played 23:28, and Cam Kungle skated 21:41.
Nick Pierre delivered a key power-play goal in the second period to give the Warriors a 3-2 lead. It was Pierre’s ninth goal of the season — a notable jump after scoring five times all of last year, nearly doubling that total in roughly half as many games.
The Warriors are off until Dec. 29, when they return to action on the road in a Hockey East game at Vermont. The players will head home this week for the Christmas break and return to campus for practice on Dec. 26.