By Matt Stefano
Last year, he shared the team’s hardest working player of the year award with team mate Eric Hillock at the 2014 Soo Thunderbirds awards banquet, and Tuesday night he got more rewarded. T-Birds second year forward Brett Jeffries scored his first career natural hat trick in the first period which led to his first four goal game lifting the Soo to a 7-3 victory over the Blind River Beavers at the Essar Centre.
Last night also marked the return of T-Birds defenseman Owen Headrick after missing thirty nine games due to injury.
The T-Birds led 3-0 after the first courtesy of Brett Jeffries natural hat trick, giving him fourteen goals on the season, passing his season totals from last year at eleven.
Jaren Bellini’s twenty fifth at 4:23 into the second from Boris Katchouk and Nick Sicoly gave the Soo a 4-0 cushion. Blind River would use then their lengthy two man advantage to get back into the game. First it would be Lawrence Vikings NCHA recruit Chris Ordoobadi getting his tenth, unassisted at 8:36 on the power play, followed by Regan Yew’s power play goal and sixth of the season at 9:34 from Nathan Hans and Andrew Trowbridge to cut the Soo’s lead to 4-2 after two.
Devin Shell would get his first in a T-Bird uniform just 5:40 into the third, from Nick Sicoly and Brandon Grandinetti. Regan Yew’s second goal on the power play and seventh from Chris Ordoobadi and Nathan Hans cut the lead to 5-3 at 8:13. Cochenour, Ontario native Brett Jeffries would notch his fourth goal of the game giving him fifteen on the season from Matt Murray and Connor Dea at 13:20. Boris Katchouk, who was named one of the Eastlink TV’s three stars of the week for the second time in three weeks, got his thirteenth from Anthony Miller and Owen Headrick at 14:17, as the T-Birds went on to a 7-3 victory over the Blind River Beavers.
Mario Culina made twenty three stops for his eighteenth win of the season. Matt Pinder had a solid performance with three assists (all coming in first period) and David Radke also got on the scoreboard with one assist on the evening.
The T-Birds will now head out on the road this Friday, February 13th in Elliot Lake at Centennial Arena. Game time is 7:30.
