On Friday, November 7th at the John Rhodes Community Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, the Soo Thunderbirds skated to a solid 4–1 win over the Blind River Beavers in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action.

The Thunderbirds opened the scoring midway through the first period when Deven Jones-McDonald notched his 11th goal of the season at 10:36, assisted by Aiden Atkinson and James Legler. After a scoreless second period, the Thunderbirds took full control in the third.

At 3:55, James Legler found the back of the net for his 9th of the year, with Atkinson adding his second assist of the night. Aiden Deratnay extended the lead to 3–0 at 8:56, converting on a setup from Jayden Arnold and Rhys Bonvie. Blind River finally broke through at 12:47 when Shyler McGahey scored his 3rd of the season, assisted by Julian Young, but the comeback effort was short-lived.

With just under two minutes to play, Landon Hill sealed the win for the Thunderbirds with an empty-netter — his 5th of the campaign — assisted by Arnold and Adam Pszeniczny.

“They were better , they wanted it more , plain and simple! Once my guys realize you need to show up every night in this league then maybe we will start to have success, until then we will continue to struggle,” added Beavers coach Kyle Brick.

“The guys were a bit slow out of the gate, but had a great game tonight. We had a few guys step up with a bunch of regulars out of the lineup so that was great to see. I know KL has a young team coming into town tomorrow, so obviously we want to build on some of the good things we did tonight and get another two points tomorrow,” added Thunderbird assistant coach Bronson Kovacs.

The Thunderbirds will look to build on their momentum on Saturday, November 8th, when they host the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners, while the Beavers will return home for a Sunday afternoon matchup against those same Gold Miners at 1:00 p.m. in Blind River.