The defending Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League champions had a tough night on home ice on Oct. 9.
The Greater Sudbury Cubs fell 6-2 to the league-leading Hearst Lumberjacks at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex on Thursday night.
The Jacks were led by Keenan Quenneville, who had a three-point night. Hearst currently sits on top of the NOJHL with a 9-3 record, while the Cubs are in eighth with a 5-5 record.
“The visiting Lumberjacks opened the scoring seven and a half minutes into the first period as multiple players barrelled their way to the net and saw Quenneville get the last touch that had him jam the puck under Cubs’ starter Mateo Beites,” the game report states.
At 13:51 of the first, Hearst made it a 2-0 game after Ty Seymour blocked a shot at his own blueline then raced down the right wing and fired a pass across to Quenneville, who put it in the net for his second goal of the period.
“Greater Sudbury got one back off the stick of Mateo Signoretti a couple of shifts later as he benefitted from a diligent forecheck provided by teammate Lucas Antonioni that led to him lifting a backhand past the Lumberjacks’ Alexandre Boivin.”
The Lumberjacks would add two more before the first period ended.
Cole Miller made it 3-1 for Hearst at 16:24, blasting a shot from the top of the left circle that found the top corner. Then, Chase Thompson made it 4-1 less than a minute off a nice set-up by Henry Ouellet.
At this point, the decision was made to give Beites the night off and put Matthew Vahramian between the pipes.
“Moving to the middle frame, the guests kept it going when Ouellet scooped up a rebound off a William Pâquet attempt and stuffed it into the open side,” the report states, making it a 5-1 Hearst game.
Pulling back to within three midway through the match-up, Greater Sudbury’s Daks Klinkhammer fired a pass toward the net that bounced off the skate of Nolan Newton and went in to make it 5-2.
The scoreline remained the same until deep into the third when Hearst iced the road victory as Quenneville fed Ty McKay for an empty netter to wrap-up the night’s scoring.