Coming off a 2 – 1 overtime loss in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan at the Pullar Stadium as the home team against the Soo Eagles on Wednesday, December 15th, the first place (18-4-2-3) Soo Thunderbirds headed back over the St Mary’s River to face their cross border rivals, the second place (16-5-1) Eagles in a Friday, December 17th contest to close out the 2021 portion of the season for the Thunderbirds.

With a turnover in front of Eagle goaltender Ryan Gilmore’s net, Thunderbird Kenny Belanger Jr slides the opening goal under Gilmore’s left pad to give the visitors a 1 – 0 lead. Colby Arbour had the lone assist on Belanger’s sixth of the season 7:34 into the first. With Thunderbird netminder Noah Metivier sprawled across his crease, Nicholas Castillo evens the game 1 – 1 for the Eagles at 8:43 of the first, Chase Tallaire and Trevor setup Castillo’s tying goal. Scoring his seventh of the season, Kelsey Ouellet fires a wrist shot from the left boards to find the back of Gilmore’s net under Eagle goaltender’s blocker for the go-ahead for the Thunderbirds 2:21 into the middle stanza. Brock Santa Maria and Creo Solomon had the contributors on Ouellet’s goal. At 15:52 of the second, Hayden Daca all alone in front of Metivier fires a wrist shot over the visitors netminder’s catcher to tie the game 2 -2 for the Eagles. Jacon Swiatek and Tyler Culleton registered the assists on Daca’s tying goal.

Unassisted and shorthanded while on a Thunderbird breakaway, Tyson Doucette beats Ryan Gilmore under the Eagle goaltender right pad to give the visitors a 3 – 2 lead at 12:35 of the final period. From the bottom of the left faceoff circle, Cooper Foster sinks his eighth of the season at 13:17 for the Thunderbirds to bring the lead to 4 – 2 with Dharan Cap adding the lone helper. On a 5:00 minute powerplay for the Thunderbirds, Doucette scores his second goal of the game 1:52 into the powerplay to give the Thunderbirds a 5 – 2 win over the Eagles. Cap and Ouellet had the contributors on Doucette’s powerplay goal at 15:38. Eagle goaltender Ryan Gilmore stopped 29 of 34 shots while Noah Metivier turned away 38 of 40 shots in his eleventh win of 2021.

Thunderbird coach Cole Jarrett told Saultsports that “I felt great to get the last one before the break. The boys wanted some payback for last game and they stuck to the plan and got the result we were looking for.”

“I think what the boys can take away from tonight heading into the second half is that we have to play the right way shift in and shift out if we want to compete against the top teams in our league. We proved we are capable of doing just that by the result today so the guys should feel pretty good about themselves through the break and be full of confidence when we pick back up again in the new year,” added Jarrett.

The Thunderbirds will now have a break until 2022 when they head out on a three game road trip with stops in Hearst (Lumberjacks), Cochrane (Crunch), and Timmins (Rock) over the January 7th – 9th weekend.