Noah Wills and Louis-Frederic Theberge each had two goals and a helper, as the Melville Millionaires defeated the Yorkton Terriers 6-4. Steven Norum had three assists while Karsten Kruska had a goal and an assist in the loss.
The Terriers opened the scoring in the first period. Norum danced around a defender then found a wide open Greg Nelson on the back door, who lifted the puck over Alexis Giroux for his second goal of the season. Yorkton added to their lead in the second period. With the Terriers driving in on goal, Clay Sleeva scooped up a bouncing puck in the slot and sniped it over the blocker of Giroux to make it 2-0. Melville responded 53 seconds later. Nicolas Samson wired a shot onto the pads of Kael DePape, only for the rebound to come to Charles-Thomas Larochelle, who slid it through the legs of DePape to make it 2-1.
After a tight checking 40 minutes of play, the offence exploded in the third period. 20 seconds into the frame, the puck took a strange hop off the end boards, alluded DePape, and ended up on the stick of Wills who tucked it into the empty net to make it 2-2, shorthanded. Just over a minute later, Melville took a 3-2 lead on the power-play. Flying into Yorkton’s zone, Wills found a wide-open Theberge in the slot, who fired the shot past DePape for his second goal of the season. Theberge and the Millionaires struck again 1:40 later. This time Carter McKay found Theberge with a cross ice pass, and the Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec product wired the one-timers past DePape to make it 4-2. Terriers responded a little more than a minute later. Norum received a feed from Tanner Sklaruk and had a 2-on-1 with Karsten Kruska. Norum’s pass found Kruska and the Edmonton, Alberta native lifted his shot over Giroux to cut the Millionaires lead to 4-3. Both teams combined for 4 goals in the first 5:01 of the third period. Melville regained their two goal advantage. McKay steered the puck in front of the Yorkton goal and DePape missed with the poke-check, allowing Enrique Fontes to take full advantage of the net-minder’s mistake as he stuffed it under DePape to make it 5-3. Yorkton answered back with roughly five minutes to go. Wyatt Homeniuk’s clearing attempt caught up in Norum’s equipment and eventually the 20-year-old found the loose puck, shoveling it to Maddux Nollski, who went one-on-one with Giroux, beating the Melville goaltender for his team leading 15th goal of the season, making it a 5-4 game. Yorkton pressed for an equalizer but were denied twice by the post, before Noah Wills sealed the game with an empty net marker, making it 6-4 Millionaires.
Kael DePape stopped 24 of 29 shots in the loss, while Alexis Giroux made 35 saves in the win. Yorkton returns to action on Saturday, when they host the Estevan Bruins at the Westland Insurance Arena. The game will be broadcast on the GX 94 online only stream, with the pre-game starting at 7:20pm and play-by-play kicking off at 7:30pm.
