Season Six Recap: Finishing Strong
April 24, 2025 - ECHL (ECHL)
Maine Mariners News Release
PORTLAND, ME - When the final horn officially signaled the end of the 2024-25 season on Sunday, April 13th, emotions filled the air inside the Cross Insurance Arena. Mariners players saluted a record crowd of 6,361 and then embraced one another - hugs and tears aplenty as if to say they weren't ready for the season to end. After defeating the Adirondack Thunder, 4-2, the Mariners won for the seventh time in their final nine games, surpassing their win total from the previous season. Still, there would be no Kelly Cup Playoffs in 2025, breaking a three-year postseason streak and leaving an empty feeling into an early, but hope-filled offseason.
The support of the fans in the sixth season of Maine Mariners hockey is where our story should begin. An average of 4,521 filled the Cross Insurance Arena on 36 home dates from October to April, up almost 200 fans from Season V. Nearly a third of the home schedule saw sellout crowds, as 11 games reached full capacity, including five in the season's final two months. Having never exceeded 6,000 fans prior to the 2024-25 season, it would happen five times in Season Six.
Despite falling short of the playoffs, the Mariners were a winning team on home ice, with a mark of 19-16-1 at the Cross Insurance Arena. A number of signature wins leave us with fond memories to last us through the summer. Nolan Maier - who was named the ECHL's Goalie of the Week for the final week of the regular season, recorded three huge specialty jersey performances. Shutouts of two of the top offensive teams in the ECHL on January 4th (Throwback Night) vs. Tahoe and February 7th (207 Night) vs. Norfolk were complemented by another masterful performance in a 3-1 win over Worcester on January 25th (Hockey Fights Cancer).
Of the five 6,000+ crowds the Mariners were able to draw, three of those went into the win column too. On top of the season-ending victory, The Mariners celebrated Beacon's Birthday with a 5-3 win over Adirondack on March 23rd, and delighted thousands of children from across the region with a 7-2 drubbing of the Norfolk Admirals on March 11th's School Day Game.
There's nothing quite like an overtime win at home, and the Mariners racked up three dramatic home OT victories in Season Six. On November 13th against the Reading Royals, Brooklyn Kalmikov scored with just seven seconds remaining, leading to Jimmy Lambert 's OT winner. Lambert would also boast Maine's one and only hat trick of the season - at home against Norfolk on January 12th. It was a New Year's Eve to remember, as 40-year-old former Portland Pirate Derek Whitmore donned a Mariners uniform and found the clutch game-tying goal in the third before Wyllum Deveaux ended 2024 with a bang. Deveaux was involved again on March 7th against Reading, after his late tying goal set the stage for Christian Sarlo to play hero in overtime.
Sarlo and fellow Penn State alumnus Xander Lamppa were two of the main catalysts in the Mariners' strong finish. From Feb. 26 (when they were paired on a line together) to the end of the season, Sarlo and Lamppa finished with 18 and 19 points respectively, providing the team with much-needed scoring depth that had been absent through much of the campaign. Jacob Hudson, who earned an AHL call-up at the tail-end (and scored on his first shift!), was also a huge reason for the late-season surge. From March 8th to season's end, Hudson found the net eight times, including four games in a row from March 11th through the 21st.
The team's leading scorer was Brooklyn Kalmikov - posting his third consecutive standout ECHL season. With a new career high of 56 points, Kalmikov also hit a Mariners milestone late in the season, joining the ranks of the franchise's 100-point club filled with only three other players (Alex Kile, Nick Master, and Mathew Santos). Kalmikov also surpassed Santos for third in franchise career goals, with 43. He was Maine's All-Star representative as well.
Two players that turned their seasons around in full 180-degree fashion were Sebastian Vidmar and Brad Arvanitis. With just one goal in his first 46 games, Vidmar - a former 20-goal scorer, was headed toward a disappointing first full season as a Mariner, before his turnaround began on February 15th at Rapid City. Vidmar parlayed his success into a continued road trip of heroic moments, scoring the game-winning goal in all four Mariners victories on their 10-game, 12-day voyage to Norfolk, Reading, and Wheeling at the end of February. He ended up scoring 12 goals in the final 26 games of the season. Arvanitis, who bided his time behind affiliate goaltenders Maier and Ryan Bischel, took over the Mariners net in late February, and wouldn't let go. With just nine appearances in the 2024 calendar year, Arvanitis didn't play at all between December 29th and February 23rd. In 14 starts beginning on the latter date in Norfolk, Arvanitis would go 10-4 to wrap the season, finishing the year as the team's defined #1 goaltending option once again.
As the Mariners tinkered with the roster all season long, two acquisitions stood above the rest in their impact on the team. Lynden McCallum, acquired in a three-team trade from Idaho at the end of 2024, would post 31 points in 44 games in a Mariners uniform, adding to the team a true power forward. Coming back to North America from France, Tristan Thompson provided a huge offensive boost to the Mariners blue line, dishing out 24 assists in 39 games, including five multi-assist performances.
For as well as the Mariners played in the end, it's a shame the season didn't last another month. They played at a playoff pace from February through the end of the season. Over their final 25 games, they went 16-8-1. In the months of March and April, they picked up points in 14 of 19 games. They won five of seven April games, including three against the division champion Trois-Rivieres Lions. The Mariners simply got hot a little too late and ran out of season - a season that they clearly weren't ready to end, based on the emotional response of April 13th. For all the lows of the 2024-25 season - one that will go into the books as a "losing" one, it was clear that the final group of Mariners truly enjoyed playing together and playing for Maine. There was an unspoken agreement of "unfinished business" and an implication that it wasn't the last we've seen of many of them together as Mariners. As the warm summer air approaches, it mixes with an air of optimism for Season Seven, a chance for the Mariners to pick up where they left off.
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