Photo Bob Davies
After doubling up on the Hearst Lumberjacks on the road on Friday, March 11th, the first place west division (32-5-2-3) Soo Thunderbirds hit the ice at the McIntyre Arena for a junior ‘A’ Saturday, March 12th contest against the east division third place (29-7-3-1) Timmins Rock in NOJHL regular season action. In their last meeting on February 19 in Sault Ste Marie, the Thunderbirds edged the visiting Rock 3 – 2 in overtime.
63 seconds into the opening period, Tyler Schwindt taps in his 29th of the season behind Thunderbird netminder Noah Zeppa to give the Rock a 1 – 0 lead. Nicolas Pigeon and Harry Clark add the contributors on Schwindt’s goal. 17 seconds into Timmins powerplay at 5:59, Tyler Gilberds catches a cross ice pass from Riley Brousseau in the right faceoff circle to rifle past Zeppa to bring the Rock’s lead to 2 – 0. Former Thunderbird defenseman Cam Dutkiewicz had the other assist on Brousseau’s powerplay marker. With a scrum in front of Rock goaltender Gavin McCarthy’s crease, Soo blueliner skates in from the blueline to slide the Thunderbirds into the back of Timmins net at 14:54 of the first to pull the visitors within one. Cooper Foster and Kelsey Ouelett drew the helpers on Fellinger’s first of the 2021 – 2022 season. All alone to the left of the Rock net, Foster fires a snapshot from the left faceoff circle past Timmins’ McCarthy to tie the game 2 – 2 for the Thunderbirds on a Soo powerplay. Ouellet and Youseff Chaouachi setup Foster’s powerplay goal at 3:39 of the third. Soo forward Cooper Foster scores his second of the game with his 17th of the season at 6:30 with Mason Chitaroni contributing on Thunderbirds go-ahead goal.
At 14:21 of the period and on a Rock powerplay, Pigeon picks up a Dutkiewicz rebound off of Zeppa to bury the tying goal behind the Thunderbird netminder to even the game 3 – 3 for Timmins. From in front of McCarthy’s crease, Dharan Cap scores his ninth of the season and the game winner for the Thunderbirds to increase the Soo’s winning streak to thirteen straight NOJHL wins, Andrew Gibson and Colby Arbour notched the assists on Cap’s game winner 4:03 into the three on three overtime to give the Soo a 4 – 3 win. Timmins’ goaltender Gavin McCarthy stopped 16 of 20 shots in the loss while Thunderbird netminder Noah Zeppa made 27 saves in his 13th win of the season.
The Thunderbirds will be back in action on Friday, March 18th in Sault Ste Marie against the east division Kirkland Lake Gold Miners and than in Blind River on Sunday, March 20th for a 2:00 p.m afternoon against the west division Beavers.
