After a tough overtime loss on Thursday night in Fernie against the Ghostriders the Nelson Junior Leafs came out against the Grand Forks Border Bruins to dominated the game taking home a 14-0 win.
“You can’t under estimate Grand Forks,” said Leafs forward Brett Norman. “You have to play them like their any other team. It felt pretty good. It sucks losing to Fernie in the overtime loss so we wanted to come out flying tonight and get two points.”
Norman scored three goals and had two assists in the game against the Border Bruins.
The team expected to come out with a win against Grand Forks who have been sitting at the bottom of league standings since the beginning of the season.
“We felt pretty good going into the game and we felt pretty positive,” said Matti Jmaeff. “We knew what we needed to do tonight. We knew that we were going to get a W and it was going to be a good game but we really wanted to focus on the things we needed to work on.”
Jmaeff, who is part of a line up with Norman and James Sorey, contributed one goal and two assists Saturday’s game.
“I think our hard work makes our line up strong,” said Norman. “We’re the most well-conditioned team on the ice 95 per cent of the time. That push through three lines only made us better it seems. So we’re going to keep going and keep conditioning and keep winning.”
Many of the Leafs top scorers also added goals to the final score including Nik Newman who scored two goals, Linden Horswell who scored three goals and James Sorey who scored two goals.
Changes to the Leafs roster this week which included the team’s top scorer Patrick Martens heading to the BCHL and the additions of Eric Spring from the Kelowna Chiefs and J.J. Beitel who spent part of the season with the Trail Smoke Eaters also shaped the game.
“The new players are fitting in great so far,” said Jmaeff. “Spring and Beitel are really good guys on the team and it’s a good fit for our organization.”
Beitel scored one goal on Saturday and had four assists.
Even though both Jmaeff and Norman said playing without Martens has been a change for the team, they feel that other players are really stepping up to fill the gap.
“It’s obviously a lot harder to play without Martens, but it gives the opportunity for other guys to step up and fill his gap and ultimately be the leader of the team,” said Norman. “I think a lot of guys are really taking that role on and pushing harder for our team.”
The Leafs used Saturday’s game as an opportunity a learning experience to work on some of their skills.
“It’s a chance for our team to work on different situations like power plays and penalty kill and really perfect some of our skills,” said Jmaeff. “We still try to keep our work ethic up and keep our feet moving, but it’s more of a learning experience.”
The Leafs’ next game is Saturday, November 19 against the Penticton Lakers at the Nelson and District Community Complex.
“I’m just going to take one game at a time and keep working hard and hopefully have the same result as tonight,” said Norman.