Skyhawks edge Eskimos in playoff opener

Eskimos goalie Cedrac Bradette dives to stop a second period shot with Skyhawks forward Adam Cook (left) on the doorstep. Photo by Chris Dawson.


The North Bay Skyhawks defeated the Abitibi Eskimos 3-1 to take a 1-0 series lead in the best-of-seven NOJHL quarterfinal at Memorial Gardens Tuesday night.

Ken Peroff, Justin Roy and Tavis Holden scored for the Skyhawks in the win.

It wasn’t a pretty victory for the Skyhawks but Skyhawks Head Coach Kevin Kerr will take it.

“Obviously the win is the most important thing,” said Kerr about his junior hockey playoff coaching debut.

“I think we can play better I think everyone in that locker room knows that we can play a lot better than we did I just hope we got the playoff jitters out of the way in the first game and now we can kind of settle in and play a little bit better.”

On the other side of the ice, North Bay native Darren Turcotte was trying to lead his Eskimos to an upset win in game one. Unfortunately for the former NHL player who only took the coaching job in Iroquois Falls in mid-February; his club couldn’t bounce back after falling behind 2-0 in the first period.

“Their D play pretty tough and Kevin’s got them playing pretty good defence,” said Turcotte about his club which only recorded 13 wins during the regular season.

“They play a pretty good system and you know somehow, some way we’ve got to find a way to break them down a little bit and I’m not sure if our guys are going to the net as much as they probably should but we played hard tonight and I can’t expect much more from our guys.”

The Skyhawks got rolling early as local product Ken Peroff got the Skyhawks on the board less than three minutes into the game.

Late in the first period the Skyhawks got a big goal from their checking line as Justin Roy carried the puck into the Abitibi zone on an odd man rush; held on to the puck and fired a wrist shot over the shoulder of a crouching Cedrac Bradette to give the Skyhawks a very important insurance goal heading into the first intermission.

In the second period call-up Tavis Holden scored a pretty goal set up by big Joey Imbeau as the two raced into the Eskimos zone and Imbeau shuffled a crisp pass onto Holden’s stick in the slot and he made no mistake and the Skyhawks had a commanding 3-0 lead.

That lead would be cut down to two just over a minute later as Matt Ayotte made a beautiful end to end rush finished off with a nice dish to a wide open Adam Combs who fired it home to break the shutout and make the score 3-1.

From there Skyhawks goalie Michael Lalande held the fort as he turned away 21 of the 22 shots he faced including eight in the third period when the Eskimos were pressing.

The two teams will continue their very busy week as they meet again Wednesday night in Iroquois Falls for game two then return to North Bay for game three on Friday night and it’s back on the bus Saturday for game four that night up in Iroquois Falls.