For their second game in one week, the first place (18-4-1) Soo Thunderbirds headed across the St Mary’s River to face the second place (15-5-1) Soo Eagles as the home team at the Pullar Stadium in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan on Wednesday, December 15. The Thunderbirds coming off a 7 – 2 win over the Espanola Express in Elliot Lake on Sunday, December 12th as the home team in a neutral site NOJHL matchup.
At 15:59 of the second period, Cooper Foster picks up a Tyson Doucette rebound off of Eagle goaltender Gabe Rosek to lift his seventh of the season over Rosek’s catcher to give the visitors a 1 – 0 lead. Brock Santa Maria drew the other helper on Foster’s powerplay goal. 3:33 into the final period, Seth Ferguson finds the back of Thunderbird netminder Noah Metivier’s net over Metivier’s blocker to tie the game 1 – for the Eagles. Marc LaFrance and Coleman McDonagh had the assists on Ferguson’s ninth of the season. 61 seconds into overtime and the Eagles on a four on three powerplay, Jack Morston catches a cross ice pass from Dylan Bachalo to find the back of Metivier’s net over the Thunderbird netminder’s catcher to give the hosts a 3 – 2 win over the their cross border rivals. Isaiah Gagerman notched the other contributor on Mortson’s tenth of the season. Eagle goaltender Gabe Rosek turned away 35 of 36 shots while Thunderbird netminder Noah Metivier stopped 28 of 30 shots in the Thunderbirds fifth loss of 2021.
Thunderbird coach Cole Jarrett told Saultsports that “I thought we worked hard tonight but we didn’t always work smart and there is a big difference. For Friday we must find a way to spend more time in their zone and not rely on only rush chances to create offence. Great thing about hockey is we get an opportunity to redeem ourselves in a couple days, so we’ll get back at it tomorrow and be ready to go on Friday.”
The Thunderbirds close out their 2021 portion of the season with a Friday, December 17th contest on Sault Ste Marie, Michigan back at the Pullar Stadium in a 7:30 p.m puck drop against Eagles.
