Thunderbirds hammer Northern Wolves

The Soo Thunderbirds made a statement on Sunday evening to the rest of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League at the hands of the Sudbury Northern Wolves.

Two nights after beating the Manitoulin Wild 4-1 on a snowy Friday evening, the Thunderbirds hammered the Northern Wolves 10-0 at the John Rhodes Community Centre on Sunday night.

A five goal first period, including four goals in the opening six minutes, propelled the Thunderbirds to victory.

Kelly Thomson, who had a huge game in being named first star with three goals and two assists, opened the scoring 1:39 into the game beating Sudbury starter Ethan Gazdic. Alex Butkus, who also picked up an assist in the game, made the score 2-0 at 3:58.

Less than a minute later, Thomson made the score 3-0 before the game was five minutes old. At 5:08, Aaron Anderson scored his first of two goals, to go along with two assists. Ryan MacKay capped off the Soo scoring in the period with a power play goal while Sudbury was two men short in the final minute of the period.

In the second period, the Thunderbirds increased the lead to 6-0 when Anderson scored his second of the night at 3:49. At 17:28, Josh Leddy scored a shorthanded goal to run the score to 7-0 after two periods. The Thunderbirds also hit three posts in the period.

In the final frame, the Thunderbirds capped off the offensive show with three more goals as Thomson scored at 6:46, Mike MacMillan then scored on a shorthanded breakaway at 10:27 and Tom Vernelli capped off the scoring at 17:34 to make the final 10-0 for the Thunderbirds.

Thunderbirds goaltender Jarrett Michaels wasn't extremely busy, but made big stops when he needed to. In all the netminder stopped 25 Sudbury shots in the win. Ethan Gazdic and Paul Pidutti combined to stop 42 Soo shots in the loss.

Thunderbirds Coach Jim Capy was pleased with the effort and is happy that his team is focused on the task at had heading down the stretch and into the playoffs. He was also pleased with the start his team got off to scoring four times in the games opening six minutes.

"Our focus is where it needs to be," Capy said. "We talked about killer instinct (Friday night) and we had it tonight. That's the start every team wants. We earned those goals."

Capy is also pleased that his team is playing strong defensively of late.

"The fact is in our last six games we've only given up eight goals," Capy said. "We're the highest scoring team in the league. But team defence has been the concern all year."

Capy added that the Northern Wolves are not pushovers and are a solid team despite the result from Sunday.

"They're struggling right now," Capy said of the Wolves. "They've got 28 wins though. You don't get 28 wins by fluke."

The win moves the Thunderbirds eight points ahead of the Northern Michigan Black Bears, who are in town on Wednesday night to face the Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds also move two points behind the Northern Wolves for second overall.

The Thunderbirds prepare to take on the Northern Michigan Black Bears, who will make their final regular season visit to the John Rhodes Community Centre on Wednesday night, in a 7:30 start.