The Greater Sudbury Cubs’ inaugural season came to an end on Friday night when they battled the second-place Soo Eagles to a 3-2 loss.
The Eagles will now advance to play the Soo Thunderbirds in the semifinals.
More than 500 fans jammed the Countryside Arena to cheer on the Cubs, but it was the Eagles that scored first and held a 1-0 lead after one period.
The Cubs got into some penalty trouble in the second period and the Eagles capitalized with two power-play goals within 30 seconds to take a commanding 3-0 lead after two periods of play.
The Cubs scored early in the third period when Billy Biedermann scored from the slot area on a setup by Pierson Sobush. The goal came at the 22-second mark.
The Cubs narrowed the score to 3-2 when Captain Kyler Campbell scored with 6.5 minutes remaining in the game.
The Cubs pulled their goaltender and went with an extra attacker over the final two minutes. The Cubs had some great looks to tie the contes, but could not beat Eagles goaltender Ryan Gilmour. Gilmour was named the game’s first star with 38 saves.
The Cubs outshot the Eagles for the sixth game in a row, firing 40 shots at Gilmour while Joel
Rainville faced 35 shots from the Eagles.
The power play was the difference-maker with the Eagles scoring twice on five power plays while the Cubs were 0 for 6 with the man advantage.
