Photos: Jeremy Seguin
FRENCH RIVER – Riding the strength of a four-goal first period, the Powassan Voodoos never trailed on their way to a 5-2 win over the French River Rapids Saturday in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play at Noelville Arena.
The Voodoos were all business in the opening 10 minutes of the contest as they stormed out to an early 3-0 lead.
Alex Little got Powassan going offensively at 2:21 as he darted into the Rapids’ zone on an odd-man rush with Mitch Wilkie before he fired one over the blocker of French River starter Kaleb Papineau.
They then saw Rhys Smetham put the guests up by a pair as he found himself free in front and made a quick move before lifting in his third of the season.
The Voodoos kept coming and went up by three a couple of shifts later thanks to Conor O’Brien skating into the right circle and scoring.
A goaltending change by the Rapids after that saw Papineau give way to back-up Brady Dyer.
A fourth Powassan marker came in the latter stages of the session thanks to Ryan Patrick darting into the French River end and whipping one into the top left-hand corner from the high slot.
In the middle stanza, the guests scored again after they won a race down the ice and fed an open Jack Kelly alone in front who deked to his left and deposited third of the year into the open side on Dyer.
The Rapids did supply one before the second intermission as Abram Snider benefitted from a Voodoos’ turnover that allowed him to go in and slide one under goalkeeper Kannon Flageolle.
In the third, French River did get one more before time expired off a nice individual shorthanded rush by Jordan Bax as he made a couple of nice moves before putting one over the pad of Flageolle with 1:41 remaining.
With the outcome, Powassan completed a home-and-home weekend sweep of French River to improve to 8-5-0-0 on the campaign while their opponents fell to 3-10-0-0 overall.
