By Matt Stefano
Lucas Peever will never forget the goal that he scored in front of his hometown crowd on Friday night.
On Friday night, Iroquois Falls, Ontario native Lucas Peever scored his first career NOJHL goal just eleven seconds into overtime, as he helped lead his hometown Iroquois Falls Storm to a 4-3 overtime victory against the Soo Thunderbirds at Jus Jordan Arena in Iroquois Falls.
Peever, who scored the overtime goal on Friday night, also helped improve the Storm’s record to 2-0 on the season.
“It’s an amazing feeling and it’s hard to put into words,” Peever said. “I couldn’t believe that I scored the overtime winner, and to celebrate with my team after that goal was unreal. I also had my grandparents and some friends in the crowd tonight and they all had nothing but great things to say to me right after the game.”
The Storm, who picked up a 4-3 overtime victory against the Soo Thunderbirds on Friday night, also battled back from a 3-1 deficit.
Prior to Friday night’s game against the Soo Thunderbirds, the Storm were coming off a 3-2 overtime win against the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners back on Friday, September 8 in Iroquois Falls.
“It was a great team effort from everyone tonight and our goalie also did an amazing job in net,” Peever said. “We slowly came back and played a full sixty-five minutes as a group and now we’re hoping that our winning streak continues.”
During Friday night’s game, the Thunderbirds got all three of their goals on the power play, including one from Jackson Truchan and a pair from Alex Remenda.
After leading the Storm 3-2 after forty minutes of play, the Thunderbirds then failed to score a goal in the third period, despite outshooting the Storm 18-5 (In that final frame).
“The difference in tonight’s game tonight’s game was that their (Iroquois Falls Storm) goalie made some great saves to keep the game tied late in the third period,” said Soo Thunderbirds forward Alex Remenda.
With the Thunderbirds on a man advantage halfway through the first period, it would be forward Alex Remenda getting his first goal of the season from Cole Power and James Legler at the 11:30 mark of the first, which gave the Thunderbirds a 1-0 lead heading into the second.
The Thunderbirds, who led 1-0 after the first period, also outshot the Storm 14-11 through twenty minutes of play.
With the Thunderbirds down a man early in the second period, it would then be a different Alex getting a power play goal of his own, as Storm forward Alex Chewanish would get his first goal of the season from Andre Cho and Krisjanis Fugalis just 2:06 into the second, which tied the game up at one.
Chewanish, who scored the Storm’s first goal of the game, was also the overtime hero for the Storm in their 3-2 overtime win against the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners back on Friday, September 8.
With the Thunderbirds on a four-minute power play later on in the middle frame, it would then be forward Jackson Truchan getting his second goal of the season from Candon O’Neill and Kelsey Ouellet at the 14:05 mark of the second, which gave the Thunderbirds a 2-1 lead.
O’Neill, who drew an assist on Truchan’s tally, also extended his assist-scoring streak to three games.
With the Thunderbirds still on the man advantage, it would then be forward Alex Remenda getting his second power play goal of the game from just twenty-five seconds later from James Legler, which put the Thunderbirds up by a 3-1 score.
Rememda, who scored two goals (Both on the power play) on Friday night, also became the first player in NOJHL history to have a multi-goal game against the Iroquois Falls Storm (Formerly the Cochrane Crunch from 2014-2023).
With the Thunderbirds leading the Storm 3-1 late in the second period, it would then be Storm forward Mathieu Roy getting his first goal of the season from Lucas Peever and Max Jugnauth with just sixteen seconds to go in the second, which cut the Thunderbirds lead to 3-2 heading into the third.
With the Storm on a power play almost midway through the third period, it would then be Storm forward Owen Cassidy getting his first career NOJHL goal, unassisted, at the 9:14 mark of the third, which tied the game at three and eventually sent the game into overtime.
Storm goaltender Connor Dunham-Fox made 40 saves, including 18 in the third period for the victory, while Thunderbirds netminder Troy Rossetto made 23 saves in the loss.
“We had our chances to win tonight’s game, but we weren’t able to capitalize,” said Soo Thunderbirds head coach Cole Jarrett, whose team went 3-for-9 on their power play while outshooting the Storm 43-27 overall.
“Troy Rossetto also had a really solid game tonight in his NOJHL debut and it’s too bad that we couldn’t pull it out for him,” Jarrett added.
The Thunderbirds, who now have a record of one win, one loss and one overtime loss, will now be back in action tonight (Saturday) at 7:00 p.m. when they visit Kirkland Lake to take on the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex.
“I thought we did a good job of getting shots on net in the third period, but the Storm had a couple lucky bounces to tie the game up and it’s a learning curve for every one of us,” Remenda said.
