The Greater Sudbury Cubs won two of the three games last week to maintain their hold on third place
in the NOJHL West Division. The Cubs will close-out the regular season this Friday when they
travel to Soo Michigan for their final regular season home game. Friday’s road game result will
determine the Cubs final placement in the West Division standings. Dates and times of the Cubs first
home play-off game will be confirmed Friday night.
The Cubs opened last week’s 3 games in 3 day schedule with a 3-0 win against the Espanola
Express on Wednesday in Sudbury. The Cubs thumped the Cochrane Crunch 6-1 on Thursday night
in Sudbury. The Cubs traveled to Sault Ste Marie Michigan on Friday but dropped a close 2-1
decision to their division rivals.
Cubs defenceman Nicholas Toffoli continues to hold a hot hand and scored the game winning goal
midway through the first period on Wednesday night. The game remained 1-0 until the 18 minute of
the third period when Billy Biedermann scored his 18 th goal of the season. Kohen Crane scored his
first NOJHL goal as Cubs’ defenceman Seth Coulter made a very unselfish play setting-up the young
forward for the empty-netter. The Cubs outshot the Express 42-24 and Joel Rainville recorded his
league-leading fifth shut-out of the season.
On Thursday night, the Sudbury Cubs fired 74 shots at Crunch netminder Michael Nickolau to earn
the 6-1 victory. The Crunch managed just 12 shots on Cubs’ goaltender Joel Rainville who recorded
his 17 th victory of the season. Mathieu Morin, Ben Harris, Seth Coulter, Pierson Sobush, Cameron
Walker and Cameron Shanks all scored for the Cubs in this game. Morin was named the game’s 1 st
star, Harris was 2nd star, while Nicholas Toffoli continued his strong two-way play and was named the
game’s 3 rd star after collecting a pair of assists.
On Friday night in Michigan, Cubs forward Cameron Walker scored the opening goal of the game and
gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission. The Eagles responded with two quick
goals within 3.5 minutes early and the second and that was all they needed to claim the 2-1 victory
over the Cubs. The Eagles outshot the Cubs by a count of 28-24. Joel Rainville was outstanding in
goal for the Cubs.
The stage has now been set for Friday night’s final match-up between the Cubs and the Eagles in
Soo, Michigan. Game time is set for 7:30 on Friday and can be viewed online at HockeyTV.com.
