The Winnipeg Blues scored three goals on the man advantage to lead the way to their third straight win over the Winnipeg Freeze.
“The guys have been snapping it around good on the powerplay and working [on it] pretty hard in practice, so it’s good to see it start going off in games,” assistant coach Zach Heisinger said.
The Freeze scored the opening goal in this game, getting the first lead of the series on Ashworth’s rush goal. Eric Fawkes killed that lead off 3:45 later with his team-leading fifth of the season, the first goal on the powerplay. The Freeze never got the lead back.
Mike Tanchak and Caden Zaplitny both scored their first MJHL goals to give the Blues a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes. Those two became the third and fourth Blues to score their first goals early this season.
“It’s great to see the older guys excited for the younger guys to score their first goals,” said Heisinger. “Lots of [these] guys didn’t have the chance to score their first goal last year so it’s big.”
The Freeze were able to pull back within one on a five-on-three, but the Blues tallied three straight goals again for a 6-2 lead after 40.
The Freeze didn’t roll over, playing a strong third period the freeze outplayed the blues for the majority of the final action, including outscoring them in a period for the first time this year. Darik Feasey scored his first two MJHL goals for the Freeze.
These two teams finish up their season-opening series tonight at the Jonathan Toews Sportsplex at 6:15 CT.