It was a painful night for the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex on Oct. 4.
The Greater Sudbury Cubs treated the hometowners to a solid 8-0 trouncing.
Holding a solid lead in the league in the early days of the 2024-25 season, the defending Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League champions scored early and often on the way to a commanding win.
The Cubs enjoyed a 3-0 lead halfway through the first period. Samuel Assinewai began the barrage at 1:53 of the first period, floating into the right circle and blasting a shot past Gold Miners’ netminder Nolan Nicoll.
A few minutes later, Lucas Signoretti, who is having a stellar start to the season for the Cubs, hammered a one-timer off a cross-ice pass from Mason Chitaroni that bounced off Nicoll and into the net.
A short time later, Eidan Macartney made it 3-0 on a power play. Assinewai fed him the puck from behind the net and Macartney, parked in front, buried it.
Kirkland Lake decided at this point that netminder Nicoll had had enough for the night and swapped him out for Kael Moberg.
Moving onto the second period, it wouldn’t stay 3-0 for long.
Cameron Shanks made it 4-0 when he stuffed a loose puck laying in the crease. Shortly thereafter, Noah Kohan went in alone on a breakaway and snapped a shot over the Moberg’s blocker to make it 5-0.
Then, Shanks would do it again before the period ended, backhanding in a dribbling puck in front of the net off a shot from the point by Chitaroni.
Up 6-0 going into the third, Signoretti’s hot hands would give him a hat trick on the night. He completed an odd-man rush with Ben Harris to make it 7-0, then completed his hat trick off a feed from Assinewai for the final score of 8-0.
Less than 20 games into the season, Signoretti is leading the league in scoring with 11 goals.
The one-sided result sees the Cubs improve to 8-1-1-1, giving them 18 points and a solid league lead over Timmins Rock with 14 points. In defeat, the Gold Miners dropped to 0-5-0-2.
