{"id":364243,"date":"2025-11-08T09:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/364243\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T09:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:51:14","slug":"springfield-thunderbirds-t-birds-fall-to-isles-in-lucics-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/364243\/","title":{"rendered":"Springfield Thunderbirds | T-Birds Fall to Isles in Lucic’s Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPRINGFIELD, Mass.\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 The Springfield Thunderbirds (1-7-1-1) had a tough go\u00a0on special teams, falling 6-2 to\u00a0the Bridgeport Islanders (4-6-1-0) on Friday night inside a sold-out MassMutual Center.<\/p>\n

The Islanders wasted little time taking a lead 1:39 into the action, as Marc Gatcomb cashed in on a rebound after Vadim Zherenko<\/strong> denied an initial breakaway chance for ex-Thunderbird Matthew Highmore.<\/p>\n

After seeing their first power play go by the wayside, the Thunderbirds succumbed to a late-period goal from Joey Larson, as the rookie gathered a puck in the right circle and surprised Zherenko with a turnaround bid at 18:16 of the frame.<\/p>\n

A fortuitous break got Springfield within a goal at 8:34 of the second period. After Zherenko outletted the puck to Juraj Pekarcik<\/strong> at center ice, the rookie winger flipped a backhander to open ice inside the Bridgeport line. Dylan Peterson<\/strong> alertly scooted to the loose puck and roofed a wrister over Parker Gahagen’s glove, making it a 2-1 score.<\/p>\n

For a second straight period, Springfield could not take advantage of multiple Islander penalties, and Bridgeport eventually added to their total as Daylan Kuefler perfectly tipped a Cole McWard shot through Zherenko’s legs at 16:13 to restore the two-goal Islander lead heading into the third.<\/p>\n

One more time, the T-Birds clawed back to a one-goal margin at the 5:00 mark of the final period when an Alek Kaskimaki centering feed from the left side ricocheted off a defender’s skate and trickled through Gahagen, making it 3-2.<\/p>\n

However, the one-goal deficit would only last 46 seconds, as a penalty put Bridgeport to the man advantage, and Larson quickly added his second of the night, batting a loose puck out of mid-air past Zherenko at 5:46. Hunter Drew followed suit at 5-on-5 at 7:27 to give the Isles a 5-2 lead.<\/p>\n

With Springfield shorthanded again in the closing minutes, Adam Beckman added another Bridgeport power play goal at 17:53 to round out the scoring. Gahagen finished his winning night with 25 stops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The T-Birds and Islanders renew their acquaintances on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. inside Total Mortgage Arena.<\/p>\n

Single-game tickets and ticket memberships for all remaining games in the Thunderbirds’ 2025-26 season are available now – fans can order now by visiting www.SpringfieldThunderbirds.com<\/a> or by calling (413) 739-GOAL (4625).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPRINGFIELD, Mass.\u00a0\u2013 The Springfield Thunderbirds (1-7-1-1) had a tough go\u00a0on special teams, falling 6-2 to\u00a0the Bridgeport Islanders (4-6-1-0)…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":364244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[26950,16949,176404,176405,293,62,176406,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-364243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-debut","9":"tag-fall","10":"tag-isles","11":"tag-lucics","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-t-birds","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115513464310883187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}