Seven Greater Sudbury Cubs players picked up multiple points as the team skated to a 9-2 win over the Espanola Paper Kings on Sept. 24.
The Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League matinee at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex proved to be a feisty affair, the team said in a news release.
Unbeaten on the season going into the game, Greater Sudbury drew first blood just past the 12-minute mark into the first. Hudson Chitaroni got the marker, his fifth of the season, off a pass from Brock Houser.
Still in the first and on the power play, the Cubs would go up by two goals thanks to Cameron Walker tucking in a Marshall McCharles.
If one power play goal is good, two is better, and before the Paper Kings’ penalty was up, the Cubs make it 3-0 after Nolan Newton wheeled out of his corner and cruised up along the blueline. Newton dodged a defender and drove to the net from the left side, then took it wide and slipping the puck past a sprawled Andrew Gaulton in the Espanola net.
The Cubs would do more damage early in the second. Cameron Shanks made a cross-crease pass that Christopher Innes steered in for his first NOJHL goal to make it 4-0.
Thirty seconds later, it would be a 5-0 Cubs game after McCharles dropped a pass back to Chitaroni, who snapped it into the net.
Espanola pulled Gaulton from the net at this point and replaced him with Jake Marois, who was welcomed to the game with a power play goal from Newton to make it 6-0 for the Cubs.
A couple of shifts later, Oliver Smith fed McCharles who backhanded in a short-handed goal to make it 7-0 for Greater Sudbury.
Espanola finally got on the board late in the second and short-handed to boot. Nicolas Saucier picked up his initial NOJHL goal by finishing off a nice toe drag move and pass from teammate Liam Rampersad to make it 7-1.
Before the period ended though and with a two-man advantage, Smith would tip in a set-up from Chitaroni to make it 8-1.
Liam McDonald got Espanola its second of the game early in the third with a wrist shot that sailed through a screen and past Beaulne. It was his first NOJHL goal.
The Cubs weren’t done yet though and scored again on their very next shift, off the stick of Smith. It was the Cubs’ captain’s league-leading seventh goal of the season.
The result sees the league-leading Cubs improve to Cubs 6-0-0-0 while in defeat, the Paper Kings fell to 4-2-0-0.
