Baber lifts Thunderbirds to home win

Special teams can make or break a hockey game and that was the case for the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Soo Thunderbirds on Saturday night.

Camaryn Baber scored a shorthanded goal with 4:55 to go in regulation time to lift the Thunderbirds to a 4-2 victory over the Soo (Mich.) Eagles at the John Rhodes Community Centre.

With the Eagles on the man advantage and looking to take the lead in the contest, Baber forced a turnover by Christian Bardarson at the Thunderbirds blueline and beat Eagles goaltender Shane Brancato high glove side to give the Thunderbirds its first lead of the contest.

“It was momentum,” Baber said. “We were having a great shift. I chipped the puck past the defenceman and got lucky short side.”

“It was obviously a huge momentum swing and it was a huge goal for our team, but it was a huge goal for Camaryn,” said Thunderbirds Coach John Parco. “He’s been playing so well. He’s playing like a veteran at 16. He finally got the monkey off of his back. He deserved that goal a long time ago.”

For the Eagles, the goal was the culmination of a tough shift on the man advantage at that point in the hockey game.

“It’s the most deflating thing to give up a goal like that,” said Eagles Assistant Coach Nick Perri, who spoke to the media in lieu of head coach Jim Capy. “Whenever it is, it’s deflating. Just the way it happened. We were playing sloppily and there was bad puck movement on the power play and gave the puck up three or four times. It was bound to happen.”

Bradon Caruso had a pair of goals and an assist for the Thunderbirds, including a power play marker midway through the third period to tie the contest at two. Caruso would seal the win with an empty net goal in the final minute of play. Noah Solinger also had a power play goal for the Thunderbirds, who would go 2-for-8 on the power play in the game.

Thunderbirds netminder Eric Schuch stopped 26 shots.

“We came out a little sluggish but once we got our feet moving and started executing a little better, we had a really good game,” Parco said.

Nick Techel and Kobe Keller each scored their fifth goals of the season to complete the Eagles scoring. Bardarson assisted on both Eagles goals. Brancato stopped 25 shots.

“It’s two-straight nights that we failed to put them away,” Perri said. “We failed to step up to the occasion. We took too many penalties. There was no discipline at all, with and without that puck. It was not playing to our system and playing fundamentally sound to get a win.”

With the win, the Thunderbirds improve to 6-2-1-0 while the Eagles fall to 2-4-0-0.

The Thunderbirds return to action on Oct. 5 on the road against the Rayside Balfour Canadians in Chelmsford before returning home for a pair of games, beginning on Oct. 7 against the Elliot Lake Wildcats.