Leafs, Hawks remain tied for top spot in Murdoch Division entering holiday break
By The Nelson Daily Sports
The Nelson Leafs scored seven unanswered goals en route to an 8-2 pounding of the Grand Forks Border Bruins in Kootenay International Junior Hockey League action Friday night at the NDCC Arena.
The win allowed the Leafs to remain tied for top spot in the Murdoch Division with the Beaver Valley Nitehawks entering the Christmas break.
After Colton Macdonald opened the scoring for the visitors less than two minutes into the game, Nelson fired up an offence that has struggled of late, scoring three times before the period ended — one goal coming shorthanded and another on the power play — to grab a 3-1 lead.
Nelson scored twice in the second before ringing up two more goals in the third to take a commanding 7-1 lead with 15 minutes remaining to play in the game.
Timothy Nichols, Nelson’s game star, and captain Aaron Dunlap each scored twice to lead the Leafs while Branden Chow, Rayce Miller and Matt MacDonald added singles.
Austin Seaman had a career game finishing with four assists while Nelson’s leading scorer, Robson Cramer, had three helpers. Dunlap also finished with three points.
The offensive showing by Seaman was quite remarkable as the Leaf defenceman spent the last nine minutes of the second period in the sinbin serving a misconduct penalty.
Steels Anderson scored the other Grand Forks goal.
Nelson out shot the Bruins 41-30 in the contest to make a winner out of Leaf goalie Joey Karrer.
In Castlegar, Beaver Valley scored twice on the power play in the third period to post a 5-3 comeback win over the hometown Rebels.
Castlegar led 2-0 in the first period on goals by Yannis Soukas and Ryan Rosich.
But the Hawks out scored the Rebels 4-1 in the final two periods — with four goals coming with the man advantage — to steal the road win.
Lyle Frank, Braydon Horcoff, Tyler Hartman, Spencer McLean and Taylor Stafford scored for the defending KIJHL champs.
Cal Owens had the other goal for Castlegar, also on the power play as it was a special teams night in Castlegar.
MURDOCH NOTES: Beaver Valley and Nelson head into the Christmas break tied for the lead in the division, each with 45 points. However, the Hawks have played one less game than Nelson. . . .Beaver Valley heads into the break winners of seven consecutive games while the Leafs have won two of five contests as the Green and White continue to wait to get injured players back in the lineup. Those injuries allowed a pair of Kootenay Ice affiliate players to taste some action as Ainge McGeady-Bruce and Keaton Roch saw action for Nelson. . . . Leafs newly-acquired forward Michael Rand had two points against his former Grand Forks club Friday. . . .Grand Forks has lost 15 straight games.
