Thunderbirds take down Voodoos

Deven Jones-McDonald set-up three goals to help lead the Soo Thunderbirds to a 7-3 triumph over the Powassan Voodoos Saturday night in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at John Rhodes Community Centre.

The teams began by trading tallies before the matchup was five minutes in.

Powassan’s Raphael Landry notched his initial NOJHL goal by swatting in a loose puck into the open side on Sault Ste. Marie starter Nathan Maguire.

The Thunderbirds came right back with the equalizer 33 seconds later thanks to Rhys Bonvie who took a feed from Jayden Arnold and pumped it over the blocker of Voodoos’ netminder Derrick Champagne.

Building on that, the Soo took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission compliments of James Legler at 17:30 as he found himself all alone in front and after taking a Jones-McDonald pass and lifted in his sixth of the season.

Action in the second stanza saw the T-Birds bang in two more to go up by three.

Jaxson Turnbull started that by taking a feed from the corner via Adam Pszeniczny and roofing it on Champagne.

Notching another, Aiden Atkinson took a cross-ice pass from Jones-McDonald and while moving down the left wing wired it top shelf at 12:40.

The Soo power play then went to work in the third as Gavin Killoran chipped in his own rebound off of Jones-McDonald’s third primary assist of the evening.

Another from Legler added to the lead as he wired in a loose puck that had just rang off the post.

Ryan Saginaw got that back for Powassan with half a period to play when a chance hit his skate and bounced into the net.

Exchanging tallies in the late going to round out the scoring, Justin Rousseau scored for Powassan at 17:24 by finishing off a scramble in close.

Then Killoran concluded things with an empty netter for his second of the night.

With the result, the Thunderbirds improve to 11-4-1-1 on the year and with the loss, the Voodoos slip to 11-4-0-1.