Written by Saturday afternoon, following an early morning win on the road, the Flames played host to the Cardigan Mountain School Cougars. The Cougars sent their Thirds team down to play a scrimmage game against the Pee Wee Major team. It was a pretty good game and had some major shifts in momentum and production. The Flames jumped out to a 4-0 lead after one period, but saw the Cougars score 7 goals over the final 27 minutes. The final score was 7-5 in favor of the visitors.
1st Period: The Flames jumped out to an early lead, scoring three times in the first three and a half minutes. Jackson Puzzo got the scoring started with a power play goal that was nicely set up by Wil Hebert and Patrick Goren. Then Sebastian Beal flipped in a rebound of a Ryan Douthart shot to make it 2-0. Thirteen seconds later, Wil Hebert scored an unassisted goal to give the Flames a 3-0 lead. Then, the first momentum shift; the Flames took a couple of penalties and Cardigan evened up the shots, although did not score. Then with 87 seconds to play in the period, Brendan Courtney made a long clearing pass to spring Wil Hebert free, and Hebert got his second goal of the opening period. After one period, the Flames led 4-0 on the scoreboard and 9-6 in shots. After taking a three goal lead so early there was chatter heard among the youngsters on the Flames bench regarding how weak their opponent was, and even how poorly skilled they were.
2nd Period: Before the second period was half over, the Cougars had scored three times, cutting the Flames to 4-3, and were dominating play. The Flames, maybe running out of gas after playing an early game in Everett, MA, or from stepping off the pedal thinking they were in an easy contest, were out shot 18 to 7 in the period. After two periods, the Flames led 4-3.
3rd Period: The Cougar eruption continued in the final period. They out shot the Flames 10-6 and scored 4 more goals, the final Cardigan goal coming with an empty net at the other end. Early in the period though, Beal struck again for his second goal of the game. The goal was the result of a nice passing play set up by Puzzo and Christian Levesque. The Flames led by two goals with 11:35 left in the game. Cardigan scored 3 goals in less than five minutes and the game was virtually over. The Flames did get some good chances in the 2nd and 3rd periods despite being outshot 28-13 over that span, but they had several good chances that led to nary a shot on goal. All in all it was a good game, and good competition for the Flames team. The Cardigan team had several players who were much bigger and stronger than most of the teams the Flames compete against. The home team will be better for having played an opponent as big, strong, and as patient as Cardigan was.