Photos: Hélène Rancourt
BLIND RIVER, Ont. – A Drew Christian man advantage marker with 1:48 remaining in regulation proved to be the decider as the Soo Thunderbirds skated away with a narrow 3-2 triumph over the Blind River Beavers in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play Tuesday at the Blind River Community Centre.
Clicking on the night’s initial power play, Sault Ste. Marie’s James Legler hammered in his team-leading 17th goal of the season 3:42 into the proceedings when he finished off a cross-ice pass from Vincent Bondy that flew past Blind River starter Justin Sullivan.
The marker gives Legler tallies in five consecutive contests, while with the second assist, Aiden Atkinson extended a point streak to five outings in a row.
Coming back to tie it when up a skater themselves midway through the first period, the Beavers’ Ryder Hill took a feed from Camden Cowan and whipped it by Thunderbirds’ netminder Cameron Boville for his 10th of the campaign.
More work by Hill on a late extra-man opportunity saw him convert from the right circle once more as he fired a shot through traffic to put the home side up 2-1 after 20 minutes.
In the middle frame, some sustained pressure led to an equalizer for the Soo at 13:58 when Jayden Arnold muscled his way into the Blind River zone and after working his way in deep, neatly dished one off to Wyatt Groth, who lifted his chance into the open side of the net.
Still tied into the third, Blind River withstood a lengthy two-man advantage in the back-half of the session, that featured a couple of quality point-blank stops by Sullivan to keep it tied.
However, going to the power play once again late, the Thunderbirds got the game-winner off the stick of Christian as he buried a rebound at the top of the crease off an Atkinson attempt from the right side.
The Beavers goal their goalkeeper out after that for an extra attacker to try and tie it and force overtime, but the T-Birds held on from there for the narrow road victory.
With the outcome, the Thunderbirds improve to 20-10-1-1 overall and with the loss, Blind River sinks to 9-20-0-4.
