NOJHL-best 4th shutout for Burns as Beavers blank Crunch

BLIND RIVER, Ont. – Blind River Beavers goaltender Charlie Burns was there when called upon to handle each shot attempt he faced Sunday afternoon to register his Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League-leading fourth shutout of the season, as part of a 5-0 triumph over the Cochrane Crunch at the Blind River Recreation Centre.

The hometown Beavers started strong and got the game’s initial tally on an early power play that saw Michael Gallagher tip in an Ethan Pegg attempt from the left side.

With the marker, Gallagher scored his fifth goal in his past three outings.

Going to man advantage once more, Blind River made it 2-0 just over five minutes into the proceedings as Evan Fraccaro take a cross-ice feed from Caleb Minns just inside the blueline, then skated in and ripped a shot over the blocker of Cochrane starter Marcus Ouellet.

Moving to the middle stanza, the Beavers went up by three 1:23 in with Pegg potting one with a wrister from the high slot that found its way through a maze of players congregated in front.

Adding a fourth on the afternoon 11 minutes later, Matthew Green corralled his own shot attempt that was blocked then proceeded to whip one upstairs from the left of Ouellet.

Putting the game out of reach four and a half minutes into the third, Minns completed a give-and-go from in close with Fraccaro to cap off the result.

The win sees Blind River move to 15-4-1-2 while Cochrane dipped to 5-18-1-0 overall.