A penalty-filled blowout between the Greater Sudbury Cubs and the Espanola Paper Kings at the Espanola Regional Recreation Complex turned into an 8-3 win for the visitors, bolstered by Cubs forward Owen King and his four goals.
But it wasn’t all rosy from the start, with the first goal coming from the NOJHL leading rookie goal-scorer Espanola’s Owen Smith, who collected his 20th point of the campaign as he redirected in a Samuel Gravel attempt from just inside the Greater Sudbury blueline, beating Cubs’ starting goalie, Mateo Beites four and a half minutes into the contest.
But King tied it up the minute he stepped out of the penalty box 8 minutes into the first, and wired a shot past Paper Kings’ netminder Logan Vale to even the score.
With a man advantage for the Cubs, Daks Klinkhammer extended a point streak to five, deflecting in a long-range wrister from Noah Kohan.
Early in the middle frame, King shot from the right side on a two-on-one and sent a sizzler past Vale, and that moved Espanola to make a goaltending change as Jack Helkie entered in relief.
While a shorthanded effort by Smith, generated off a turnover, and brought the home side back to within one, the Cubs came right back and banged in two more to make it 5-2.
King completed his eighth career NOJHL hat trick, in just his 53rd league game, midway through the match-up as he whipped one upstairs on a five-on-three.
Nolan Newton right after that collected his team-leading 16th by stuffing in a Mason Walker cross-crease dish.
The Paper Kings moved back with a pair at 12:52 thanks to Carter Drigo converting off a nice set-up by Smith.
However, the Cubs took a 6-3 lead into the second intermission when Spencer Horgan worked his way between the circles and snapped a shot that found its way in.
More from King and the Cubs power play in the final frame, helped put it out of reach as he cemented his fourth of the evening with a laser from the right circle.
Up a skater once more, Klinkhammer collected another by chopping in a rebound off a Newton chance up top to round out the scoring.
The victory for the rolling Cubs was their fifth in a row as they are now unbeaten in nine straight (8-0-1-0) and improved to 13-5-1-0 overall.
With the loss, the Paper Kings dropped to 12-7-0-1.