Thunderbirds win again while Rivermen and Eskimos also victorious

NORTHERN ONTARIO JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
MEDIA UPDATE

Release Date: Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013
 
Thunderbirds win again while Rivermen and Eskimos also victorious

SUDBURY – A highly anticipated match-up between the top two teams in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League standings went the way of the Soo Thunderbirds who edged the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners 2-1 with other action seeing the Espanola Rivermen easily handle the Blind River Beavers and the Abitibi Eskimos skate past the North Bay Trappers.

SOO THUNDERBIRDS 2 KIRKLAND LAKE GOLD MINERS 1 – Rolling right along, Sault Ste. Marie won for a ninth straight time as they narrowly edged Kirkland Lake at Essar Centre.

Nicholas Tassone notched the lone goal of the opening session as the T-Birds’ forward beat Gold Miners’ netminder Kenny Fitzgerald at 15:09.

Tyler Jones then extended the lead to 2-0 for the home side after 40 minutes as he found the back of the net midway through the session.

Garrett Nichol then dashed Joel Horodziejczyk’s shutout bid 5:40 into the final frame in what turned out to be the final marker of the night.

Shots on goal favoured the Thunderbirds 32-22 as they improved to 12-2 with the victory while Kirkland Lake dropped to 10-2-0-1 in defeat.

ESPANOLA RIVERMEN 7 BLIND RIVER BEAVERS 2 – The visiting Rivermen erupted for six first period goals to seal the outcome early in the triumph over Blind River.

Brandon Janke had two of the tallies and set-up another in that opening stanza to send Espanola on their way.

Brennen Dubchak, Jason Bednarski, Ryan Theriault and Brad Edwards also had markers in the stanza with Edwards’ effort coming a year to the day after he broke his leg in a game last season when the franchise was based in North Bay.

The two sides traded goals in the middle stanza with Jacob Boisvenue connecting for the Beavers and Corbin Bean countering for the Rivermen.

Liam Finn added one early in the third for Blind River, but that’s as close as they would get as the game came to an end.

Joakim Jutras made 33 saves in winning in his Espanola debut as they improved to 10-5 overall.

Shaun Gerbinski started for the Beavers, but gave way to Matt Young after the sixth goal against as they saw 48 attempts fired against them in a losing cause as they fell to 4-11 on the season.

ABITIBI ESKIMOS 3 NORTH BAY TRAPPERS 1 – A Brady Clouthier goal 6:40 into the third period proved to be the winner as the hometown Eskimos defeated the Trappers at Jus Jordan Arena.

The opening period saw the two sides exchanged tallies with Zach Innes scoring for Abitibi and Zachary Shankar replying for North Bay.

Following a scoreless middle session Clouthier potted the winner in the third.

Kealey Cummings then iced it in the final minute helping the Eskimos improve to 6-5-0-2 on the season while the Trappers dipped to 4-9-0-3.

Sylvain Miron picked up the win in net for Abitibi as he made 27 saves on the night.

Dustin Hummel suffered the loss stopping 29 of 32 for North Bay.

Weekly play in the NOJHL concludes Sunday as Sault Ste. Marie entertains Espanola at 3 p.m.

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