Nickel Barons beat Eskimos in convincing fashion

The Sudbury Nickel Barons built up a three-goal lead after one period and never trailed en route to a 6-3 victory over the visiting Abitibi Eskimos Feb. 27 in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at McClelland Arena.

Marco Lizotte and Sebastien Leroux found the back of the net before the contest was four minutes old, spelling an early end to Abitibi starter Jeremy Laux’s evening.

Darcy Haines notched another before the opening period was out as he beat Jackson Winkler, who had come in to replace Laux.

After Jacob Punkari extended the cushion to four 11 minutes into the middle stanza, Daniel Villeneuve put the Eskimos on the board with 57 seconds remaining in the second session.

However, Haines answered right back for the Nickel Barons a half minute later burying his league-leading 37th goal of the season to put the home side up 5-1 after 40 minutes.

An August Jarecki marker early in the third added to the Sudbury lead with Aaron Kerr and Peter Poulin-Roy countering later for the Eskimos to round out the night’s scoring.

Giovanni Foschia and Bradley Bell both dished out a pair of assists to aid Sudbury’s offensive efforts.

Michael Muzyka made 27 saves to pick up the win helping his side improve to 28-15-0-1 on the season.

Laux faced five shots in his brief stint while Winkler suffered the loss making 24 stops in 56 minutes of relief.

The setback extended Abitibi’s winless streak to 11 games as they fell to 12-28-0-3 overall.