Forced to play all their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League playoff games on Blind River Ice, the Elliot Lake Wildcats were swept in two games in their best of three series against the Blind River Beavers Sunday afternoon at the Blind River Community Centre Arena. The Wildcats were shut out of their home rink, Centennial Arena, while the city-owned structure was forced to go on a list of buildings to get precautionary snow and ice roof clearings.
In the deciding game, forward Ryan Peck scored two goals and assisted on a third to lead the Beavers to a 6-2 matinee victory in what would prove to be the final and deciding game two of their best of three West Division quarter final series against Elliot Lake Wildcats.
With that, Blind River took the best of three series 2-0 to advance to the west division semi-final. That series kicks off next Saturday against the Soo Thunderbirds at Sault Ste. Marie's John Rhodes Community Centre.
In Sunday's match against Elliot Lake Wildcats, the Beavers blasted off to a three-goal lead after one period. Nathan Engel started things off with a goal at 13:09 in a power play. Then came Peck's first goal, followed by another marker by Matthew Murray with five seconds left in the first stanza.
In the second period, the Beavers added two more goals with Peck and Justin Mauro both finding the back of the Elliot Lake net.
In the third period, the Wildcats got on the board when Caleb Minns made a score with assists from Noah Minns and Mark Perone. Then the Wildcats went to the power play and pulled goalie Dominic Boily, adding another skater as defenceman Mark Perone got his only goal with an assist from Eric Conley.
Other Beavers scoring came from Engel on an empty netter. Caleb Serre, Ryan Nielsen and Riley Nadeau added two assists each for the Beavers.
Boily had 35 saves in the season-ending defeat for the Wildcats, while Beavers' netminder Garret Boyonoski made 31 stops for the victory.
In the first series game Friday night, Blind River took Elliot Lake 5-2.