Thunderbirds outwork Beavers for convincing win (4 photos)

The Soo Thunderbirds played their first game without Toots Kovacs behind their bench and came away with a convincing victory.

The Thunderbirds defeated the Blind Rivers Beavers 8-3 on Wednesday night in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at the John Rhodes Community Centre in game five of the Carmen Provenzano Memorial Cup.

The Thunderbirds, who received big nights from their top line of Ryan Maunu, Mike McMillan, and Mark Thorburn, got on the board early and often on the night.

Thorburn opened the scoring just 30 seconds into the game on a setup from McMillan and Maunu. Maunu sent the game into the first intermission with the Thunderbirds holding a 2-0 lead when he potted his 22nd goal of the season at 17:26.

“I think in the first period we were sleeping,” said coach Pat Carricato, who is filling in for Kovacs behind the Thunderbirds bench as head coach.

“Maunu’s line really carried us. The other two lines weren’t going at all. In the first intermission we had a little talk. We wanted to get the puck low and work their defence. That’s our game, especially against (Blind River) and our players came out and did it and goals started going in for us.”

After Jesse Gionette pulled Blind River to within one goal at 1:44 of the second period, the Thunderbirds scored three goals in just over five minutes to take a 5-1 lead.

McMillan scored at 8:32 before Mark Thorburn made the score 4-1 at 11:09. Maunu scored one of the best goals of the night at 13:55 when, with the Thunderbirds two men short, he came off the bench as the first penalty expired and received a breakaway pass from Ben Davey and put it past Don Bruni in the Beavers goal.

Shane Bailey scored on the power play at 14:13 to pull the Beavers back to within three but a Tyler Gendron goal at 15:19 restored the lead.

McMillan and Justin Shelleby added third period goals to make the score 8-2 before Nick Jelitto of the Beavers capped off the scoring with a power play goal at 12:39.

“For the first period I think (the ten-day layoff) showed,” added Carricato. “(In the first period) our passing was off, breaking out of our own zone was atrocious. We weren’t executing anything. We were getting no fore-check down low. I wasn’t pleased with the first at all.”

Carricato was pleased with the Thunderbirds defensive play as well as the help of three members of the Soo North Stars who were called up for the game –- Kevin Closs, Derrek Coccimiglio, and Trevor McNutt.

A fourth, goaltender Ryan Dube, was in the lineup due to an injury suffered by Michael Maulucci but he didn’t see action.

“(Our defensive play) got better as the game went on,” Carricato said. “We were making lazy errors and making lazy plays (in the first period). As the game went on our defensive zone play started coming along.

“Kevin Closs, a fifteen-year-old, didn’t look out of place,” Carricato added. “When we call (the North Stars players) up, they’re doing us a favour. In a game like this, they didn’t look out of place so it was easy to throw them back on the ice. I wasn’t worried at all about throwing the North Star kids on the ice.”

Carricato will be handling the head coaching duties until Toots Kovacs return from the Soo Greyhounds. Kovacs will be away from the team for the immediate future as he will join the Greyhounds while Coach Craig Hartsburg is away with the Canadian National Junior Team. Kovacs begins his duties with this weekend’s road trip.

Beavers coach Jim Capy commented that the Thunderbirds are the one team that has given his team fits all season, as the Thunderbirds have now won five straight games over their division rivals.

“They’re a team that’s five goals better than the Blind River Beavers right now,” Capy said. “We’re a team that needs to play with structure for 60 minutes. If you want to know why they’re 15-8 and we’re 7-12, it’s that (the Thunderbirds) work hard and they play smart.

“I don’t know what it is when we play these guys,” Capy continued. “We seem to be intimidated. It seems that whenever we play them, that’s what happens. To their credit, they worked hard.”

The Thunderbirds next action will be a Sunday evening home game against the Manitoulin Islanders. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Rhodes.

*** AROUND THE NOJHL:

AT NORTHERN MICHIGAN: Brenden Biedermann scored at 12:25 of the third period to give the Sudbury Junior Wolves a 6-5 victory over the Northern Michigan Black Bears in Sault, Michigan. Biedermann also had a pair of assists in the win. Derek Stabile had two goals for Northern Michigan.

(Photos courtesy of Jim Egan.)