THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn. – The Thief River Falls Norskies collected a pair of goals, and an assist, from Joe Collins as part of a 4-2 triumph over the visiting Dryden GM Ice Dogs in Superior International Junior Hockey League play Saturday with 648 fans on hand at Ralph Engelstad Arena.
After taking the opener of the two-game set Friday, Thief River Falls started the scoring on this night with some crisp passing on the power play that resulted in Collins firing one past Dryden starter Dawson Rattai six minutes into the contest.
The GM Ice Dogs drew level early in the second stanza off a face off win by Josh Weber that got the puck to Evan Pakkala who whipped one in from the right circle to knot the score at 1-1.
A nice cross-crease pass from Collins left Mason McIntosh with a tap in at 11:27 as the hosts went back on top.
Answering back a couple of shifts later, Dryden’s Nolan Marshall flipped a chance high out of his own zone that found Gavyn Galloway streaking down the left wing as he buried one upstairs on Caleb Sauer in the Norskies net.
On another man advantage late in the session, Sauer left a dump in for Connor Kalthoff who skated up the ice and left one for Tyler Johnson just inside the GM Ice Dogs blueline where he wired one through a maze in front just under the crossbar to make it 3-2 Thief River Falls after two.
Collins then added some insurance in the later stages of the third to cap off his three-point evening as his attempt from the right side found its way through Rattai and slowy trickled over the goal line at 16:48 to round out the scoring.
Sauer finished with 23 saves to record the win for the Norskies while Rattai faced 35 attempts in defeat for the GM Ice Dogs.
Photo credit: Tim Benton