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The Blind River Beavers scored three times early in the first period and never looked back in a 7-0 trouncing of the Soo Thunderbirds in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League contest Friday at John Rhodes Community Centre.
The visiting Beavers began the night’s scoring, five and a half minutes into the contest, when defenceman Andrey Manov powered his way down the left wing and ripped a shot from the left circle past Thunderbirds’ netminder Kolton Bourret.
Blind River came right back and added another a couple of shifts later with Clark Furman banging in a rebound off a point shot. Not done there, the Beavers struck again, via the power play, at 8:05 as Michael Gallagher whipped in a feed from Jesse Dupuis, which also saw Sault Ste. Marie replace Bourret in favour of back-up Maverick Fletcher.
On the man advantage to begin the middle stanza, Blind River converted when a head-man pass up to Gallagher saw him dash down the left wing and fire one through Fletcher at 1:21.
Notching another while up a skater, a deft Dupuis deflection put the Beavers up by five with still over a half a game to play.
Blind River got two more in the final frame to cap off the one-sided result, with Brendan Cooke burying one in from the slot, before Furman made a nice inside-move and picked the short side corner to round out the scoring.
Beavers’ goaltender Noah Tegelaar was spotless in registering his third shutout of the season, which ties him for NOJHL lead in that department.
The result saw Blind River move to 20-8-0-0 overall and in defeat the Soo dropped to 16-7-2-1.