IROQUOIS FALLS – The Kirkland Lake Gold Miners trio of Luc Soares, Ryan Swain and Tristan Hazlett combined for 15 points as they helped light up the Abitibi Eskimos 8-3 Saturday in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League match-up at Jus Jordan Arena.
Kirkland Lake came out firing scoring three times before the contest was eight minutes old chasing Abitibi starter Ryan Ferguson as Zach Pease, Steven Babin and Soares all found the back of the net.
Brady Clouthier connected on an Eskimos power play at 12:02 to get them on the board only to see Ethan Strong add a man advantage marker of his own for Kirkland Lake in the latter stages of the period.
The Gold Miners tacked one three more in the middle stanza, including a pair by Hazlett and another by Soares while Brenden Locke connected for Abitibi to make it 7-2 after 40 minutes.
Hazlett then finished out a hat trick on assists from Soares and Swain before Clouthier added his second on the power play for the Eskimos with 6:24 to go.
Josh Erickson made 39 stops to pick up the win for Kirkland Lake.
Ferguson allowed three against on six attempts with Chet Tooker making 39 stops in suffering the loss in relief for Abitibi.
