The Saginaw Spirit extended its win streak to 3 games in a dominant 6-1 victory over the North Bay Battalion in front of 3,030 fans at the Dow Event Center tonight.
The Spirit opened up the scoring with a power play goal midway through the first period when Damien Giroux (8) scored his eighth goal of the season from Brady Gilmour at the 8:23 mark, holding a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
Saginaw's No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 OHL priority selection draft, Blade Jenkins (5) continued his blistering goal scoring pace with his fifth tally of the season from D.J. Busdeker and Giroux for a 2-0 lead at 1:18 of the second period.
Just over 2-minutes later, Jenkins (6) added his sixth of the season with assists from Giroux and Hayden Davis to extend the Spirit lead to 3-0 at 4:24 of the second period.
After Jenkins was whistled for a slashing penalty around the 6:45 mark of the second period, North Bay forward Luke Burghardt (7) converted the power play for his seventh goal of the season to get the Battalion on the board (3-1) at 7:07 of the second period.
As the second period was winding down, Jenkins (8) redirected a Hayden Davis shot from the point for his first career OHL hat trick at 16:01 of the second period, as the Spirit skated into the second intermission with a 4-1 lead.
Jenkins has been the hottest Spirit scorer over the course of the last seven games.
Before scoring his first career OHL goal on Oct. 22, against the Peterborough Petes, Jenkins had just 1-point (1-assist) throughout his first 9 OHL games, however, in the 7-games since, he has 9-points (7-goals, 2-assists) bringing his season total to 10-points (7-goals, 3-assists) in 16-games.
Just 31-seconds into the third period, Cole Coskey (9) scored his ninth goal of the season from Daniil Vertiy and Marcus Crawford for a 5-1 Spirit lead.
Spirit rookie defenseman Caleb Everett would round out the scoring with his first career OHL goal, unassisted to make it a 6-1 game at 8:21 of the third period.
In its most complete game at both ends of the ice so far this year, the Spirit managed to hold the Battalion to 23 shots on goal, while Spirit goal tender Evan Cormier turned away 22 of those 23 shots in net tonight.
The Spirit will be off until next weekend when it heads out for 2 road games, the first against the Mississauga Steelheads for a 7 pm face off at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, ON Friday night, before a 7 pm face off against the Erie Otters at the Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, PA on Saturday evening.
The following week, the Spirit will play its third straight road game against the London Knights on Fri Nov. 17, in a 7:30 pm game at Budweiser Gardens in London, ON, before returning home to host the Owen Sound Attack on Sat. Nov. 18, at the Dow Event Center.
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Nov 05, 2017
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