Thunderbirds improve to 2-0

It wasn’t pretty but the Soo Thunderbirds improved to 2-0 on the young Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League season on Friday night.

The Thunderbirds picked up a 4-2 win over the Powassan Voodoos at the John Rhodes Community Centre in the first of a pair of weekend games at home for the Thunderbirds.

“It definitely wasn’t pretty at times but we’re getting used to each other and we’ve put in a little bit of a different system than last year so it’s going to take the boys a little bit of time to get the patterns down,” said Thunderbirds coach Jordan Smith.

Caleb Boman led the way for the Thunderbirds offensively with a goal and an assist in the win. Jaren Bellini, Nathan Hebert and Owen Headrick also scored for the Thunderbirds. Brett Jeffries and Connor Dea set up a pair of goals each in the win.

Thunderbirds netminder Brian Kment stopped 32 shots in his first game of the season.

Michael Silveri and Brett Lepisto scored for Powassan in the loss.

“It’s game five for us and there’s lots to clean up,” said Powassan coach Scott Wray, “but I’m pretty happy with the effort after sitting on the bus for five hours.”

“They’re starting to learn the system,” Wray also said. “Tonight was a really close game until that fourth goal.”
Voodoos goaltender Jack Ondrovic stopped 25 shots in the loss.

“Tonight he faced a lot of rubber,” Wray said. “He stood in there. He probably wants that second goal back. It fluttered past the line on a backhand. It was a weird goal. The fourth goal, that net kept coming off for him and Kment.

Smith felt the Thunderbirds could have done more offensively.

“I don’t think we challenged him enough, especially in the first period,” said Smith. “We wanted to get more pucks on net and utilize our cycle a little more. In the second period when we did more of that, we took over the game and they had a hard time playing with us.”

The Thunderbirds are back in action at the John Rhodes on Saturday night when they host the Sudbury Nickel Barons, who enter the game with a 5-1 record.

In other action around the NOJHL, the Abitibi Eskimos beat the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners 2-1 while the Elliot Lake Bobcats beat the Blind River Beavers 8-1 in Elliot Lake. The other NOJHL game on Friday night saw the Cochrane Crunch cruise to an 8-2 win over the Mattawa Blackhawks.

File photo by Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday