Photos: Helene Rancourt
BLIND RIVER, Ont. – A well-balanced Blind River Beavers side collected goals from seven different skaters as part of a 7-3 victory over the Elliot Lake Vikings Sunday in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at the Blind River Community Centre.
A solid start for the Beavers saw them strike just 17 seconds into the contest as Jakob Kovacs caught Vikings’ starter Sam Keene off his line and while darting around the net on a wraparound, stuffed his 18th goal of the season into the open side.
Elliot Lake came back to tie it three and a half minutes later with Garrett Nystrom snapping a shot from the point that clipped off a Beavers’ player to change direction enough to elude the glove of netminder Gavin Disano.
Coming right back, the home side retook the lead with Michael Gallagher blasting in a short side slap shot from the left circle.
Blind River then put an early end to Keene’s day at 7:52 when Jacob Beemer wired a wrister into the top right hand corner off a feed from Mason Morden.
Following the marker, Matthew Vahramian took over between the pipes the Vikings.
Elliot Lake pulled to within one at 13:05 on a Tomas Palandra effort as he fired a low shot between the legs of Disano off an odd-man rush.
Taking a 4-2 lead into the first intermission, Brendan Cooke ripped one top shelf past a partially screened Vahramian.
Moving to the middle frame, the Beavers’ Jesse Dupuis clicked on the power play by roofing an attempt off a goal-mouth scramble at 6:08.
Getting closer, the Vikings’ Nathan Marincola neatly tipped a Matthew Kallo attempt from the left point that sailed over the shoulder of Disano at 12:19.
Adding some early insurance into the third, Cooke powered his way by a defender and worked the puck across to Clark Furman, who swooped in and zipped it over a diving Vahramian.
Blind River then put the game away when Cameron Menard chipped a play ahead and proceeded to neatly pick the right-hand corner to cap off the scoring.
The win moves the Beavers’ record to 14-7-0-0 and saw the Vikings slip to 4-11-1-2 overall.
