MARQUETTE - After being on what he called "a bit of a slump" for the few weeks preceding this weekend's games with the Soo Indians, Electricians' forward John Aho had a huge weekend for Marquette.
On Sunday, Aho scored five points on two goals and three assists to follow up a four-point (2 goals 2 assists) night on Saturday for a combined nine-point weekend.
The Electricians (12-8-4 overall) won both games, Sunday by a score of 7-1, and Saturday, 7-2.
"It feels good to score," Aho said. "Nine points in two games, it's pretty good."
Electros coach Mike Dagenais said that Aho is starting to live up to his expectations.
"John is starting to put the puck in the net more now than he did in the beginning of the season, and we're going to be expecting more of him."
After seeing a sluggish Indians team (2-20-0) on Saturday, Marquette knew that they had to come on strong and get the momentum to swing in their favor early.
Three first period goals helped them do just that.
"We always seem to do well after we get the first goal, especially if we pad it with one or two more," Aho said.
Aho scored the first and third Electricians' goals, his second on a power play, with a goal from Mitch Snider in between, to give Marquette a 3-0 lead after the first period.
The Electricians only got stronger from there, and the extra work Marquette put into their special teams during practice really showed out on the ice.
"We've been putting a lot of effort into the special teams over the last couple of weeks, and the power play is rolling," Dagenais said. "The penalty kill is something that we take pride in, too."
Marquette scored a total of three times with the extra attacker, with the other two power play goals scored by Ryan Crosson and Alex Hauswirth in the third, and Aho said it was all about cycling the puck in the offensive zone.
"Our power play was working early, and we were just moving the puck around well."
Brandon Smaby and Joel Benson added the last two Marquette goals, while
Marquette's defense was able to hold Soo to a Gavin Burbach score on an unassisted, short-handed marker in the second.
Marquette's defense didn't give any ground, outside of the Burbach goal, and Dagenais attributed that to the play of his goaltender, Andrew Mills.
"Mills is a great kid, he comes up with some big saves for us, and that's huge defensively," he said.
Mills stopped 15 shots for the win, while Joey Gravedoni faced an onslaught of Marquette shots, and was able to stop 29 of them.
"We knew they were going to come out hard, and we knew we had to keep the tempo up and skate hard," Aho said. "The defense was clearing out pucks pretty good, and we were clearing everything out and not giving them any shots."
On Saturday, Aho and Wolff Belanger lead the Electricians with two goals and two assists each, while Tyler Hinkson, Brad Chapman and Artem Shtalenkov each added a goal apiece.
For Soo, Travis Payne and Justin Bennett were able to find the back of the net.
Jon Hill was between the pipes for the Electricians, and stopped 16 shots, while Zack Telentino had 33 saves.
