The Bloomington Thunder swept the two-game weekend over Team USA with Saturday’s 2-1 win at U.S. Cellular Coliseum. (Photo courtesy Bloomington Thunder)
By Brian Tosti/Bloomington Thunder
BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington Thunder came out looking for a sweep of the United States National Team Development Program and that’s just what they got. The thunder netted two unanswered goals in the game to take a 2-1 win at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum on Saturday night. The Thunder (29-17-3-1) have won their last five games sweeping back to back weekends and ending their season series with Team USA undefeated in six games.
The game-winning goal went to forward Mitchell Chaffee who scored goals in both games for his club. The rookie’s third period tally was his sixth of the season and assisted by Logan Lambdin (Michigan State University). The Thunder’s leading goal scorer composed a four-point (2g, 2a) weekend for the Thunder and has a three game streak of six points. Lambdin moved down the left side of the rink to beat a Team USA defender to the puck, sliding it across to the Rockford, MI native to roof the puck just underneath the crossbar.
Jake Durflinger tied the game for the Thunder in the second period to a late goal from Team USA rounding out the first. The puck was passed up the wing by Jeremy Davies (Northeastern University) before it was pushed further by Blake Gober (Penn State University). When Durflinger took the puck at center ice, he began a 2-on-1 with Patrick Curry into the offensive zone. At the right wing circle, Durflinger let a wrist shot go over the left shoulder of Jake Oettinger (Boston University) to tie the game a little over two minutes into the period. The Thunder forward scored his 13th of the season toward his 25th point this year.
Both Davies and Gober extended their point streaks to four and three games. The United States Hockey League’s top goal scoring defenseman has five assists in four games, while the Colleyville, TX native has two goals and a helper over his three games.
Helping the Thunder was a huge penalty kill during the second period. The Thunder were up on the power play for 20 seconds before they were called for a tripping and hooking call on the same sequence. The 5-on-4 quickly turned to a 4-on-3 for a power play switch. The three men on the ice killed off the 1:40 disadvantage and proceeded to kill off the final 20 seconds of a 5-on-3.
Helping with that penalty kill and making great saves in the game was Hayden Lavigne (University of Michigan) who made 20 saves in his fifth consecutive win. Despite a low shooting game of just 37 combined, Lavigne controlled the play for the Thunder. The future Wolverine of Michigan collected his 22nd win of the season and is now 7-1-0-0 in his last eight starts. Lavigne has allowed just four goals in his last five starts.
The one tally for Team USA came in the first period. A shot from James Sanchez (University of Michigan) redirected on its flight path to the net and changed up enough to score. The goal was the first lead of the weekend for Team USA and came in the final minute of the first period.
Keeping the leading scorers for the NTDP off the board, the Thunder were able to hand Oettinger just his second loss of the season making just 14 saves in the game.
The Thunder will continue their home stand on Thursday night against the Youngstown Phantoms. The Thunder topped the Phantoms in their last two meetings with their largest win of team history coming in the most recent meeting.
