Lancaster had been waiting for its offense to wake up and the wins to come. Through the first five league games of the season, the Legends had just one win. On Saturday, they squeaked out a 1-0 win over Clarence.
And on Sunday, Lancaster’s offense really came to life against Frontier: the Legends began a winning streak with a 9-1 win over the Falcons that included a hat trick by Mathieu Rachiele.
“Felt good to finally put the puck in the net a couple times, and [Zach] Fischer and [Brandon] Voight, they help a lot,” said Rachiele as he accepted the player of the game stick from a teammate. “They always know where I am, and we’ve been working with each other since eighth grade, so our chemistry is really good at this point. So it’s easy for us to put the puck in the net when we’re on point.”
The senior line of Fischer, Rachiele, and Voight totaled nine points in Sunday’s win. As Rachiele said, the three have played together since eighth grade, and they know what to expect from each other. From Rachiele, Fischer expects goals and does his best to get his linemate the puck. Fischer finished Sunday’s game with a goal and three assists.
“That’s all Matt Rachiele,” Fischer said. “That’s why I give him the puck: because I know he’s gonna score.”
All the Legends expected of Sunday’s game was, in their words, a good fight.
“They usually put up a decent fight against us, so we knew we just had to stick to our game plan, and we had to put the puck in the net was the main thing,” Rachiele said. “We did that, so it felt really good for us to get the win and get the win streak going.”
“We knew that it was gonna be a tough game,” added Fischer. “They played us hard last year. They’re a good team, we know. We had a good game. We finally started to jell and find the net.”
Junior Jeff Coons played with the Regals last season. This is his first season in the Fed, and from what his teammates had told him, Coons expected a tight game as well. The 9-1 win was a pleasant surprise.
“The guys in the locker room told me that they always have a good fight against us,” Coons said. “Middle-of-the-road team, just like us, trying to fight our way through every game. We didn’t expect to win by this margin, but we expected to have a good fight.”
Coons moved up to play forward for Sunday’s game after playing defense all season, due in part to injuries but also to coach Kevin Miller’s attempts to shake things up. It worked well, as Coons finished the game with three assists.
“We needed a little bit of a spark,” Miller said. “And he’s got the experience, and we’re experimenting with it right now, and obviously it worked out pretty well today.”
Almost everything worked in Lancaster’s favor on Sunday. Rachiele’s first two goals came in the first period, one of them two-and-a-half minutes in and the other just past the halfway point. Jordan Hussar scored just a few minutes later, and the Legends finished the first with a 3-0 lead.
The only blemish was a Frontier power play goal by Ryan Piniewski 46 seconds into the second period that cut the Legends’ lead to 3-1.
But Lancaster answered back just more than five minutes later as Shawn Kross scored, and Lucas Prince added to the lead just a few minutes later. Fischer scored with 6:16 left in the third to increase Lancaster’s lead to 6-1.
“It was a great pass by Jeff Coons right in front of the net to me,” Fischer said. “I just tried to find some soft ice and turned and fired it in.”
Rachiele completed his hat trick less than four minutes later, shorthanded. Voight and Nick Speyer scored in the last minute and 10 seconds of regulation to complete the offensive outpouring.
“It feels good, obviously,” Miller said. “And the boys, they’ve been working hard, and last couple games, it’s been tough to score. But it’s nice to see them have a breakthrough game like this, and like I said, it’s tough to score in this league, and to have a game like this, it’s good for them and good for their confidence.”
“It’s great,” Fischer said. “Finally a breakthrough. We’ve been waiting for this the whole season. I think from here on, I think we’ll be alright.”
“It’s huge because right now we got a week break, and then we got Massena this weekend, and then we got Timon on Sunday, which is gonna be a pretty tough competition,” Coons said. “So I think these two wins are good momentum to go forward to next weekend.”
The question that remains is whether Coons will remain at forward or return to the blue line.
“It was really nice,” Coons said of playing forward. “I’ve been playing defense the whole year, and I switched up to forward for this game, and it was nice. I’m typically a playmaker. I like passing the puck. And it’s nice to play with my linemate Shawn Kross. We played all year together, and we have good chemistry.”
“We brought him up mainly because we had some guys injured, and once those guys come back, we’ll reevaluate everything,” Miller said. “And we’ll see where it goes because he’s a good player all around, offensively and defensively, so we’re lucky to have him on the team, and we’ll see what happens in the future.”