saultsports Photos: Helene Rancourt
BLIND RIVER, Ont. – Striking four times, including picking up three goals on the power play, Owen King’s big night led the Blind River Beavers to a 7-4 victory over the Greater Sudbury Cubs Tuesday night in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League match-up at the Blind River Community Centre.
Trading two tallies apiece in the back half of the first period, the Beavers began the scoring when Clark Furman muscled his way out from behind the goal line and sent a pass to Wyatt Gibson, who lifted it over Cubs’ netminder Noah Beaulne at 15:03.
Countering less than a minute later, Mateo Signoretti took a feed from Lucas Signoretti and darted down the slot where he put an attempt towards the target that hit off a defender and knuckled past Blind River goaltender Connor Dunham-Fox.
Getting that back at, moments into a man advantage, King found the range as he wired in a wrister through traffic from the top of the right circle.
Answering yet again, visitors knotted the affair at 2-2 after one, when Mason Chitaroni jumped in from the point and shovelled in a rebound off a Michael MacLean chance with just under three seconds remaining in the session.
More markers in the middle frame, including a trio by Blind River, added to the offensive output.
Reaching the 20-goal plateau for a second year in a row, Nolan Newton made it 3-2 Cubs at 1:25 when he put a shot on net that managed to leak through Dunham-Fox.
Countering the Beavers banged in three in an eight-minute span to put the hosts up by a pair.
Rylan Gibbs began the outburst by lifting in a backhand to tie things up.
King then went to work on the power play yet again as he scored twice to take the NOJHL goal-lead with 45 on the season.
His second of the night saw him take a cross-ice feed from Gibson and snap it in from the right of Beaulne.
Notching another at 12:10, King darted down the left wing with speed, then while using a defender as screen, went top shelf with precision.
The hat trick for King was his NOJHL-best sixth of the season.
Special teams played a part in a couple of more markers before the end of the frame that saw Blind River take a 6-4 edge into the intermission.
Up a skater, Eidan Macartney brought the quests closer as he was neatly set-up by Newton.
Responding, Keenan Conn tacked on the sixth of the evening for the Beavers as his extra-man effort was banked in off a Greater Sudbury defenceman from a sharp angle.
In the third, King capped off his impressive outing by notching his fourth of the contest, and 46th overall, into an empty net with a minute and a half to play.
The result raises Blind River’s record to 33-13-2-2, while in defeat, Greater Sudbury slipped to 41-6-1-1.
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