LocalSportsJournal.com
The Muskegon Lumberjacks exploded offensively on Friday night, tying a franchise record for most goals in a game.
Austin Albrecht and Mikael Hakkarainen each provided three-goal hat tricks for Muskegon, which pounded the
Tri-City Strom 9-1 at the Viaero Center in Kearney, Nebraska.
The Lumberjacks are now 32-17-4 on the season, good for 68 points and third place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference. They remain five points behind first-place Chicago and one point behind second-place Dubuque.
Muskegon has an eight-point lead over the Green Bay Gamblers for the final playoff spot in the conference with just seven games remaining in the regular season.
The Lumberjacks took a 1-0 lead on a goal from Albrecht at the 11:54 mark of the first period.
They took control in the second period with five goals.
Austin Alger increased Muskegon’s advantage to 2-0 at the 28 second mark of the second, then Hakkarainen made it 3-0 at the 6:27 mark.
Albrecht scored twice in the second period – at 11:09 and 14:28 – to complete his hat trick. Hakkarainen notched his second goal of the game at the 18:18 mark.
Hakkarainen scored his third goal 29 seconds into the third period to give Muskegon a 7-0 advantage.
The Lumberjacks closed their scoring with third-period goals from Collin Adams (3:08) and Andrei Svechnikov (5:36) to increase their advantage to 9-0 early in the third period.
Tri-City ended the shutout bid with a goal from Nicholas Nardella 12:42 into the final stanza.
Muskegon outshot the Storm by a 25-19 margin.
Keith Petruzzelli picked up the win in net for the Lumberjacks, stopping 18 of 19 shots.
