Payne, Harper Each Score Twice as Thunder End Losing Skid

GLENS FALLS, NY – Adirondack forwards Robbie Payne and Shane Harper each netted a pair of goals as the Thunder ended their five-game losing streak with a 5-3 win on home ice against the Trois-Rivières Lions on Thursday night. Alex Sakellaropoulos made 27 saves for his fifth victory of the season and helped the Thunder move to 14-15-2-0 on the year. 

The only goal in the first period belonged to Adirondack. After receiving a pass from defenseman Paul Meyer, Sebastian Vidmar sauced the puck perfected to Shane Harper inside the offensive zone on a partial breakaway. Harper reached into his bag of tricks to put the puck past Lions' netminder Tristan Berube for his sixth of the season.

The Lions needed just 1:44 into the second period to even the score. Shawn St-Amant turned and fired a puck from the high slot through traffic to make it 1-1. Trois-Rivières took the lead on a seeing-eye shot from Francis Meilleur at 8:09 of the second.

The Thunder responded after Jordan Kaplan sprung his way into the Lions' zone and backhanded the puck off of the crossbar. The rebound came out to the top of the near circle where Chris Lijdsman let one rip off the pad of Berube. As the puck was sitting on the ice, Robbie Payne ripped past the netminder to tie the game at two.

Exactly three minutes later, Adirondack took the lead as Payne netted his second of the game in a similar fashion, on the rebound after a save by Berube. The goal was Payne's 14 of the season and was assisted by Sebastian Vidmar and Luke Stevens. 

In the third period with the Thunder up by a 3-2 score, Adirondack went to the powerplay following a double-minor spearing call against Danick Malouin. In the second half of the powerplay, Patrick Grasso threw the puck to the point for Jake Ryczek. Ryczek made a quick pass to Harper at the top of the left circle who scorched a wrist shot over the right shoulder of Berube to make it 4-2.

Sebastian Vidmar tacked on an empty-net goal to make it 5-2. Trois-Rivières' Nicolas Lariviere scored with just 47 seconds left to pull his team within two, but the clock struck zero before the Lions could muster another goal.

Adirondack finished 1-for-4 on the powerplay and killed off both Trois-Rivières' powerplay opportunities.

View the game's full boxscoreHERE.

NEXT GAME: Adirondack hosts the Reading Royals at Cool Insuring Arena tomorrow night at 7pm. 

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