It was a busy night on the shot count and the scoreboard for the Trenton Golden Hawks on Friday night.
Taeo Artichuk reached the 20-goal mark with a natural hat trick in a 7-2 victory over the Pickering Panthers, with the Hawks outshooting the visitors 48-21.
Trenton laid on the pedal right from the start, firing 19 shots at Pickering netminder Anthony Sciere and scoring twice through Jaxon Broda’s second of the year and the first OJHL goal for Logan Bennett.
The Hawks continued to pour on the shots in the second, with Owen Outwater whistling home a powerplay marker for his second goal in as many games and first at home.
Despite all the chance, Sciere was stellar and the Panthers beat the buzzer with a Tyler Bruce marker to reduce the deficit to two.
The Hawks finally managed to wear Sciere down in the third.
Joey Brehmer rocketed home his seventh of the season to reinstate the three-goal bulge early in the third, but it was quickly trimmed again on a powerplay about a minute later from Vasily Serov.
Artichuk then took over, stripping a Pickering defender clean, outwaited the poke check from Sciere and then caught the corner for his second of the night, before one-timing Thomas Kuipers feed on a powerplay two-on-one rush to extend the lead further.
A couple of scrums towards the ended punctuated Pickering’s frustration and the Hawks would tack on one more through Artichuk’s hat trick marker, a wonderful display of hand-eye coordination on a net drive before the buzzer sounded.
Thomas Kuipers was outstanding in the assist department with five in the victory.
Hayden Jeffery had 19 saves to push Trenton back into first place in the East Conference with a 13-2-0-2 record and 28 points and extend a team point streak to eight games.
The Hawks will enjoy this win until next Thursday with a big 3:30 road game in Stouffville against the Spirit.
