The new measurement is in, and apparently the Muskegon Lumberjacks have truly made some big strides since their slow start this season.
A few times a year the Jacks play the Team USA 18-Under squad, an elite team of selected players who compete against a lot of college and international teams.
The 18s typically beat up on USHL teams, including the Lumberjacks, but coach Mike Hamilton likes to play them, because it helps him measure how the team is developing over the course of any given season.
The Jacks have obviously come a long way this season, because they traveled to Plymouth, Michigan on Wednesday morning to play the USA 18s and came away with a very impressive 3-2 victory at the USA Hockey Arena.
Muskegon is now 12-9-3 on the season and in fourth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference with 27 points. The Jacks are only one point behind third-place Madison and five behind second-place Dubuque.
[1]They will play two games this weekend in Green Bay against the Gamblers.
“It was a great game,” Hamilton said. “We competed hard. It was one of our key wins of the season so far.”
Wednesday’s game was Muskegon’s fourth against the USA 18s this season. They lost twice in preseason games, then got hammered 8-3 on Oct. 9.
But that was a Lumberjacks team that was still struggling to find itself. In recent weeks the Jacks have been on a tear, winning 9 of their last 11 games before Wednesday, and they showed the 18s just how much they’ve improved.
“Obviously we learned a lot about our team today and what we’ve become,” Hamilton said. “We’re not going to fall for the fool’s gold and start loving ourselves too much, but this obviously shows that we’re improving internally and getting better. There’s lots of excitement about this win.”
The Lumberjacks opened the scoring when Ben Strinden scored his 12th goal of the season at 12:11 of the first period. USA’s Cutter Gauthier tied the score at the 13:56 mark, but then Muskegon’s Jake Richard scored his second goal of the season at 18:38, giving the Jacks a 2-1 lead at the first break.
Joey Larson scored his team-leading 16th goal at 13:02 of the second period, putting the Jacks up 3-1.
Gauthier scored his second goal early in the third period for Team USA, but the Lumberjacks kept the home team off the scoreboard the rest of the way and got the win.
Jack Williams and Phil Tresca both had two assists for Muskegon while Jacob Guevin and Jacob Napier each had one.
Hamilton noted that the Jacks had their entire roster intact for the first time in more than a week, and it made a difference on Wednesday. Last weekend they were missing about a half dozen players for various reasons, including minor injuries, suspensions and illness.
“Each team only had one power play, so basically the whole game was 5-on-5, and with our depth, that played to one of our strengths,” Hamilton said.
“We just kept griding them down. Everybody got lots of ice time, and I think our depth was a lot for them to handle.”
Goalie Alexander Kuleshov had a strong performance for Muskegon, stopping 26 of 28 shots to collect the win.
“He played really well,” Hamilton said. “He made two pretty big saves when the score was 0-0. One was on a breakaway and another was on an odd-man rush, and it made a big difference.”
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