After Colby Arbour fired the overtime goal 16 hours earlier for the win over the visiting Timmins Rock in Sault Ste Marie, the first place (24-5-2-3) Soo Thunderbirds hit the road for an afternoon matinee in Espanola against the sixth place (8-20-2) Espanola Express in a west division matchup on Sunday, February 20th.

Former Espanola Express forward, Cole Delarosbil picks up a rebound off of a sprawling Express goaltender Matthew Looney to slide the opening goal into the back of Espanola’s net to give the Soo a 1 – 0 lead. Ethan Novello and Sam Lake drew the helpers on Delarosbil’s third of the season. At 15:42, Mason Chitaroni sinks the Thunderbirds second goal unassisted to bring the lead to 2 – 0 for the Soo. From the behind the back of Looney’s net at 7:48 of the middle stanza, Russell Oldham bounces the Thunderbirds third goal off a back of the Expess goaltender from the right slide of the net to give the visitors a 2 – 0 lead. Eric Barnard from in front of Thunderbird netminder Noah Zeppa’s net to lifts Espanola’s lone goal past the Soo netminder to close the gap by two at 5:02 of the third. Benjamin Lacroix notched the contributor on Barnard’s fifth goal of the season.

From the right faceoff circle, Youssef Chaouachi fires his fifth of the season find the back of Looney’s net 6:22 into the period to give the Thunderbirds their 25th win of the season. Oldham and Dharan Cap registered the assists on Soo’s fifth goal. Express goaltender Matthew Loney stopped 25 of 29 shots in the 4 – 1 loss while Thunderbird netminder Noah Zeppa turned away 20 of 21 shots in the afternoon matinee in Espanola.

Thunderbird Ethan Novello told Saultsports that “As a group we could have played better today and capitalized on a couple more opportunities, Zepps was solid between the pipes and helped us finish off a good week for the group. I thought Wednesday and Friday were some of the most complete efforts of the year for the group. We came out of those two games with four massive points which was a huge confidence boost for us coming into today’s game.”

The Thunderbirds now hit the road for a three game stint starting on Friday, February 25th against the east division Gold Miners in Kirkland Lake for a 7:00 p.m puck drop.