Photos: Sudbury Light Event Photography
SUDBURY, Ont. – The Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League-leading Blind River Beavers skated to their sixth consecutive victory Tuesday afternoon as they went on to swamp the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners 8-0 in Day 1 play at the NOJHL Showcase at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
Breaking out of their own zone, following a face off, Blind River began the scoring as they moved up ice on a two-on-one where Joshua Thompson calmly waited and fed teammate Michael Gallagher, who quickly fired a shot that eluded Gold Miners’ goaltender Braydon Garnhart at 9:40.
Adding another two and a half minutes later, Caleb Minns set-up Trevor Zimmer in the slot where he zipped one over the blocker of Garnhart and into the left-hand corner to send his side to the intermission up by a pair.
Adding another with 6:55 left in the middle frame, the Beavers broke out in transition and saw Thomas Dimoulas leave the puck for Noah Aboflan between the hash marks where he whipped it in for his third of the campaign.
Coming right back, Blind River added another thanks to Zimmer as he blasted a one-timer from the high slot to extend their lead to four.
Breaking it open, the NOJHL front-runners struck again before the period came to a close with Evan Fraccaro doing the majority of the work before sliding it over to Aboflan who was left with a close-range, tap-in at 18:18.
In the third, after Kaeden McArthur was taken down on a break, but injured on the play, the Beavers’ Fraccaro took the penalty shot for his teammate and calmly converted by sliding a low shot through the legs of the Kirkland Lake keeper to put the game out of reach.
Not done there, the league-leaders kept coming and saw Minns send a back hand to a hard-charging Jesse Dupuis, as he too capitalized from close range.
Capping off the one-sided result, Minns finished off a Dupuis feed on an odd-mad rush as the club raised their NOJHL tally total to 40 on the year.
Blind River starter Charlie Burns was steady when called upon to record his first NOJHL shutout in the triumph as Blind River extended their winning streak and improved to 8-1-0-0 overall.