FRENCH RIVER – After rolling through October unbeaten in 10 outings with an impressive 9-0-0-1 record, the Powassan Voodoos continued their torrid pace to begin November by thumping the French River Rapids 11-4 in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League contest Wednesday at Noelville Arena.
Powassan began extending their run without a loss to 11 Wednesday by storming out to a 5-1 cushion after one period of play to take early control of the match-up.
The offensive out began just 80 seconds in as Dayton Murray collected his 15th goal of the season, which presently paces all NOJHL defencemen.
After Aaron Dickson made it 2-0 just over a minute later, the Voodoos kept coming and tacked on another, via Harrison Israels at 13:45, to go up by three.
Jacob Romano got one back for French River a couple shifts later, but the visitors continued to press thanks to additional markers from both Dickson, at even strength, and a Murray power play blast as he ran his D-man tally total to a league-best 16.
It was more Voodoos early in the middle stanza with Ryan Theriault, Shane Beaulieu and Tyson Gilmour all scoring before the session was just over six minutes old to make it an 8-1 count.
Donny Schultz’s third of the campaign picked up one for the Rapids, but a Quintin Loon-Stewardson man advantage effort extended the Powassan margin to 9-2 after two periods of play.
The Loon-Stewardson strike helped him bring a point streak to five while also etching his name on the scoresheet in 10 of his past 11 outings.
Schultz picked up his second of the evening early in the third for French River while Cade Herd struck shorthanded midway through the frame for Powassan to help them reach double digits.
Gregory Trudeau-Paquet of the Rapids connected at 15:02 as he picked up his 19th of the year, which leads all NOJHL skaters, before Shane Beaulieu capped off the romp for Voodoos in the late going to wrap things up offensively.
Gilmour had a monster game for the Voodoos as he also doled out five assists to go with his goal for a career single-game-high six points while easily extending a consecutive game point streak to eight along the way.
With the victory surging Powassan improved to an NOJHL-best 16-2-0-1 and French River slipped to 8-13-2-0 overall.
Graham Dynes made 40 stops to record the win in net.
Jean-Marc Brisson and Andrew Rocha both saw time in goal for French in the loss as the duo combined to face 60 shots in defeat.
Photos courtesy of Dal Photography