The Lakehead Thunderwolves beat the Brock Badgers 4-2 on Friday night at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay, ON.
Lakehead controlled the majority of the play in the first period, winning most of the one-on-one battles and dominating in puck possession. Brock scored first though, on the power-play when Badgers forward Thomas Stajan tipped a shot from the point that changed directions and eluded Lakehead netminder Alex Dupuis at 14:48 of the first period.
Lakehead replied at 18:58 of the first, with a power-play marker of its own. Mitch Fillman split the Brock defense and set up on Matt Caria with a wide open cage. The other assist went to Mike Quesnele.
Alex Dupuis kept the score even at 1-1 with several big stops in the second period that saw Brock gain some momentum after they were outplayed in the first. Thats not too say that the Thunderwolves didnt have opportunities also. Devin Welsh had a great chance as he was coming down the left-wing and fired a hard wrister that squeaked through Brock goalie Kurt Jory, but slid just outside the post. Jory also made a huge save on Thomas Frazee on a beautiful pass from behind the net from Matt Caria.
Lakehead got back to business in the third period, dominating for large portions of it. The Wolves had several chances, including an open net for Victor Anilane off a Welsh rebound that he could not finish. Keith Grondin put Lakehead in front 2-1 at 7:42 of the third as he picked up a rebound off a hard Jake Carrick wrist shot. Assists went to Carrick and Andrew Wilkins.
The Wolves increased their lead to 3-1 when Thomas Frazee found a streaking Matt Caria who put the puck past Jory at 15:59. The other assist was credited to Ryan McDonald.
Brock pulled to within one after a non-call by the referee after Caria was tripped at center ice. With no call made, Jordan Gignac came back the other way and put the puck past Dupuis at 17:54 to narrow the Wolves lead to 3-2.
Trevor Gamache added an empty-netter with 8 seconds left in the game after a nice set-up by Caria, sealing the 4-2 victory for Lakehead.
The Molson 3 Stars of the game were:
1- Matt Caria
2- Alex Dupuis
3- Jake Carrick
Both teams are back at it Saturday night at 7:30PM at the Fort William Gardens for the final game of the regular season.