ESPANOLA, Ont. – The Rayside-Balfour Canadians got two goals apiece from Mathieu Dokis-Dupuis and Nicholas DeGrazia as part of an eventual 8-3 victory over the Espanola Express in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League encounter Friday at the Regional Recreation Complex.
After being edged by the Express Thursday night at home, the Canadians were all business to begin this one as they scored four times in the frame to take early control of the contest.
Zachary Hauseman and Benjamin Hatanaka started the offensive outburst for Rayside-Balfour before Zacharie Giroux and Dokis-Dupuis added later markers to make it 4-0 after 20 minutes.
The visitors kept going early in the second as Dokis-Dupuis scored once more for his fourth-multi-point outing in a row and increase the guests lead to five.
Espanola did get on the board at 3:49 of the middle session when Camilo Rodrique-Melo put in his second of the campaign.
Cutting into the deficit even further, Bradley Brunet added another for the Express a few minutes later.
Stemming the tide, the Canadians made it 6-2 at 10:39 on Matthew-Belanger’s team-leading 15th tally of 2019-20.
However, the goals kept coming with the Express picking up the ninth overall on the night, which was provided by Zachary Matyasik.
A 10th tally of the evening was then provided by the Canadians’ Nicholas DeGrazia helping his side take a four-goal cushion into the third.
DeGrazia then added one more in the third to round out the scoring.
In all, eight different Rayside-Balfour players produce two or more points in the triumph.
Shots on goal favoured the winners by a 57-32 margin with Nicholas Heinzle picking up the victory.
Andrew Rocha started for Espanola and allowed three against on 22 shots while Joel Rainville suffered the loss in relief, handling 30 of the 35 attempts put his way.
