POWASSAN, Ont. – The Powassan Voodoos connected for five first period goals and never looked back at they went on to defeat the French River Rapids 7-1 in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play Wednesday at the Powassan Sportsplex.
It took the hometown Voodoos just 22 seconds to open the night’s scoring as Ryan Mills connected on the first shift of the game.
It was more Powassan at 4:49 with Sam Ellwood adding to the early lead.
They then went up by three midway through the initial period on a Gregory Trudeau-Paquet marker.
Continuing to click offensively, Parker Bowman finished one off via the power play at 12:02 to keep the hosts rolling before affiliate Cameron Lemcke added one at even strength 55 seconds later to cap off the offensive outburst in the session.
It was more from the hosts in the middle stanza as they tacked on two more to extend their lead.
Bowman bagged his second of the night and 36th of the season at 11:31 before Mills managed another late in the period to put Powassan up by seven.
French River did dash the shutout bid of the Voodoos Owen Say at 3:21 as Levi Siau finished off the work of teammates Ty Chambers and Jack Ginocchi to round out the night’s scoring.
Bowman led the way offensively with a four-point performance while Mills, Trudeau-Pauet and Tomas Yachmenev, who dished out a trio of assists, each had three points.
Say finished with 38 saves to record his league-leading 27th victory of the season in the Voodoos’ triumph as they raised their NOJHL-best winning percentage to .823 in 2019-20.
Rapids starter Sebastian Woods faced allowed five against on 24 attempts in defeat during two periods of work while backup Ben Montgomery handled nine of 11 in relief for French River.