By SooToday Staff
SooToday.com
Sunday, November 01, 2009

NEWS RELEASE

SOO THUNDERBIRDS

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Wolves Prowl For Pay Back and Earn Two Points

Coming off a 4-3 loss to the Soo Thunderbirds, the Sudbury Jr. Wolves traveled to the John Rhodes Community Centre to face the hometown Thunderbirds for a Halloween rematch.

The Thunderbirds would start the scoring at 05:35, when Tyler Evoy came back hard, reversed his cycle to find a center lane, and took a soft pass from Kurtis Travaligni and buried it. Ryan McLean also assisted, with some good work on the wall.

Sudbury Wolves big center Chris Kangas responded at 07:54, with nice shot from the high slot to beat T-Bird goalie Ryan McDonald. The period ended with the score tied 1-1.

Jr. Wolves winger Zach McGillis scored at 06:03 of the second period to put the Wolves ahead 2-1. McGillis worked his way through traffic to find a sweet lane, before a nice tuck move that stymied T-Bird goalie Ryan McDonald.

The T-Birds responded and the power play went to work. Effective outside passing kept the inside lanes open, Tyler Evoy fed a sweet pass to Chad Thibodeau, who pulled the trigger and the game was tied at 2-2.

The game started to open up, with the flow for the T-Birds. At 18:17, Giiwedin Kakegabon was awarded a roughing penalty. The Wolves responded, with a nice power play. Tyler Arps scored at 18:52 on some nice passing from Erik Belanger and big Chris Kangas to put the score at 3-2 Wolves to end the second period.

The third period opened with T-Bird Drew Otto taking control. At 00:50 of the third period, Otto split the seam after taking a sliding pass from Tyler Evoy and tied things up again.

The Wolves responded quickly and Chris Pontes pulled the Wolves ahead 4-3 at 06:24. Wolves Luc Comtois added another power play goal at 14:11 to put the Wolves ahead 5-3.

Drew Otto then demonstrated why he was defenseman of the year last season. Otto scored a beautiful unassisted goal at 17:15 to pull the T-Birds to within one. Jerry Petingalo scored the tying goal at 19:25, assisted by Drew Otto and Colin Barnauskas, sending the game to overtime.

The overtime period saw the T-Birds miss some glorious chances and the game went to a shootout. Wolves Zach McGillis went high glove on Ryan McDonald on the Wolves second shot. The T-Bird shooters could not beat Wolves goalie Chris Kaye.

Kaye had a solid performance, stopping 44 of 49 shots, many from point blank range.

The Wolves picked up two points, with the 6-5 victory, while the T-Birds got a point to remain in first place in the NOJHL Western Division, with a record of 11-4-1 for 13 points.

The T-Birds travel to Iroquois Falls next Saturday for their first match-up with the mighty Abitibi Eskimos, who sit atop of the Eastern Division with a record of 12-0-2.

The T-Birds return to the Rhodes Wed. Nov. 11 when the “Border Battle” resumes against the cross border Soo Eagles.

CLOSING NOTES

While stats are not always a true indicator of a teams play, here are some rather interesting ones. The T-Birds are currently second in the league for penalty minutes and in 16 games they have taken 330 minutes in the penalty box. That’s an average of over 20 minutes, or a period a game when short handed. There have been 3-4 games when bad, lazy penalties have taken the flow away from the team and meant a loss. Last night was a perfect example.

The T-Birds also have the highest amount of shots on net in the league. In 16 games, the T-Birds have outshot their opponents by 693-380, that’s an average of 43 shots to 23 shots per game. The T-Birds have only been outshot once this season.

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