Christopher Berger had two goals and one assist to lead the Buffalo Jr. Sabres to a 6-2 victory over the Toronto Jr. Canadiens Junior Canadiens.
Berger scored on the power play at 11:23 into the second period to make the score 2-1 Toronto Jr. Canadiens and again while 6:24 into the third to make the score 3-2 Buffalo.
Toronto Jr. Canadiens’ power play was ineffective against Buffalo’s penalty kill, which allowed one goal while shorthanded.
The Jr. Sabres racked up the penalties in the contest, and ended with 10 minors and one major for 35 minutes in penalty time. Buffalo had been averaging 25.0 minutes in penalties per game. The Jr. Sabres forced the Junior Canadiens’ goalies to work all game long, ripping 45 shots and forcing 39 saves. Brendan Bonello made 39 stops and Jacob Tersigni made zero. Buffalo was ineffective while on the power play, as it was held to two goals off of 10 man advantages.
Buffalo also got points from Zach Evancho, who also had one goal and two assists, David Baskerville, who also racked up one goal and two assists to lead the team in points, Michael Benaquist Jr., who also tallied one goal and one assist, and Ryan Wheeler, who also registered one goal and one assist. Other players who recorded assists for Buffalo were Aaron Reinig, Evan Bennett, Griffin Lunn, and Christian Zimmerman, who each chipped in one.
Toronto Jr. Canadiens forced its penalty killing units to work especially hard during the game, picking up 13 minors and one major for 31 minutes in penalty time. The total exceeded the 15.0 minutes per game the Junior Canadiens had been spending in the box. Toronto Jr. Canadiens’ offense rang up 32 shots on the Jr. Sabres’ net.
The Junior Canadiens were helped by Nico Gonzalez, who finished with one goal. Gonzalez scored 8:48 into the second period to make the score 2-0 Toronto Jr. Canadiens. George Novachis picked up the assist. Andrew Mullen also scored for Toronto Jr. Canadiens. In addition, Toronto Jr. Canadiens received assists from Anthony Trujillo, Nicholas Jarzabek, and David Zeppieri, who contributed one each.
Buffalo’s Brian Kowalski stopped 30 shots out of the 32 that he faced. The Jr. Sabres ran into serious disciplinary problems during the contest, and Mitchell Spring was ejected from the game. For Toronto Jr. Canadiens, Eric Eremita was ejected from the game.
