Thunderbirds drop overtime heartbreaker

The Soo Thunderbirds had an opportunity to even up the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League Championship on Tuesday night but now find themselves in a hole.

Tyler Eady scored the game winner in the second overtime period as the Thunderbirds dropped a 4-3 decision to the North Bay Skyhawks.

The Thunderbirds now trail the NOHJL title series 2-0 after dropping a 5-3 decision to open the series in North Bay on Sunday evening.

The two teams battled through an uneventful first period before North Bay's Ryan Silveira opened the scoring at 17:26.

The Thunderbirds did have an opportunity to tie the game not long after the goal but Soo forward Kelly Thomson was foiled by North Bay goaltender Martin Perreault.

In the second period, North Bay nearly went ahead 2-0 early on when Nathan Daly crossed the red line and fired a shot on Soo goaltender Casey Mapes that deflected off something before hitting the post behind Mapes and moving out of harms way.

Silveira then gave the Skyhawks a real 2-0 lead to work with as he beat Mapes while shorthanded to put the locals in a hole.

Just under two minutes after Silveira made it 2-0, defenceman Ryan MacKay pulled the Thunderbirds to within one as he scored a power play goal moments after North Bay was caught with too many men on the ice.

Perreault was handcuffed on the goal as the point shot by MacKay came through a maze of players in front of the North Bay goal.

With less than a minute left in the period, Justin Towell got the game back on even terms after knocking home a rebound off a shot by MacKay at 19:09.

With the game tied early in the third period, the Skyhawks took a 3-2 lead as Noel Lortie beat Mapes at 1:24.

Before the period was half over, the Thunderbirds got the goal back as Alex Butkus knocked in a rebound off of a Tom Vernelli shot at 9:11 with the Thunderbirds on the power play to send the game to overtime.

In the first overtime period, the Thunderbirds had an opportunity to end the game early as David Frawley was hit with a slashing minor just 16 seconds into the extra frame. With Frawley in the penalty box, Butkus was turned aside by Perreault to keep the game going.

Late in the period, Mapes was forced to come up with a big stop after Josh Merson broke in before being denied by the Soo netminder. In the second overtime, the Skyhawks capitalized on some Thunderbirds defensive zone miscues and ended the game as Tyler Eady picked up the game winner to give the Skyhawks a 4-3 win and a 2-0 series lead.

"With any kind of luck we could be up 2-0 (in the series)," said Thunderbirds head coach Jim Capy following the game. "Now we've got to take it one game at a time. The encouraging thing is we've played well enough to be up two games."

Capy went on to say that he is confident heading into Thursday night's game in North Bay based on their last two performances there, a 4-3 overtime win and a 5-3 loss in game one that saw them outshoot the Skyhawks 45-24.

"If we look at our last two performances down there," Capy said, "we know we can go in there and play well."

Capy went on to say that he stressed after the first overtime period that his team needed to be patient and not make any mistakes.

"After the first overtime we talked about being patient and we talked about not making any mistakes," Capy said. "On the winning goal we made a couple of mistakes.

"In the early part of the game we had a couple of power plays that we could have capitalized on. We've done a nice job defensively against them, holding them to under 30 shots in both games. It's a combination of their goalie playing well and us not bearing down on our chances."

The Thunderbirds will travel to North Bay for game three on Thursday night at 7 p.m. The series will then shift back to Sault Ste. Marie for game four on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. at the John Rhodes Community Centre.

Photos courtesy of Jim Egan