The Powassan Voodoos scored twice in each period, while their goaltender, Owen Wray, picked his first Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League shutout Friday in a 6-0 triumph over the Cochrane Crunch at Tim Horton Events Centre.
A splendid coast-to-coast rush made by James Johnson resulted in his first NOJHL goal as he cruised the length of the ice, cut through a crew of Cochrane defenders while driving to the net and moving to his left where he lifted a back hand over Crunch netminder Michael Nickolau.
Late the in the first, Powassan added another with Alexander Bradshaw converting at 19:10 as he took a clean face-off win by Jackson Buffam and promptly whipped in his 17th of the season with a wrister from the right circle. In the middle stanza, the visitors tacked on two more to go 4-0 after 40 minutes.
Johnson added his second of the evening as he was left with a gift into the short side as a wrap around the boards hit one of the officials leaving the puck for him to collect and put it front where he tucked it in before Nickolau could get his pad across to stop it.
Battalion prospect Chase MacQueen-Spence then got into the offensive act for the Voodoos at 5:52 as he jammed one in from the right side after a couple of deflections off a point shot from Ryan O’Dell.
In the third, the guests put the game away with the night’s final pair of tallies. Buffam corralled a loose puck in the neutral to start the play on the fifth marker as he cruised down the left wing and buried third of the season at 6:51.
Powassan’s Easton Robitaille then capped off the one-sided result in the final minute as he lifted in his opening NOJHL goal from between the hash marks.
In all, Wray handled all 20 attempts he saw to collect his initial league shutout while Nickolau was peppered with 56 shots against in a losing cause.
The Voodoos are back on the ice Saturday night in Hearst as they continue their last northern road swing of 2021 against the Lumberjacks.
