Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos, and to player spotlight interviews with Keagan Braun and Carson Hughes.

ALPENA---The Escanaba High School hockey team exploded for four goals in the first four minutes of the third period to beat the Tri-Valley Thunder out of Saginaw-Bay City-Midland, 6-2, Friday evening, at the Alpena Holiday Tournament at the Northern Lights Arena.
 

The Eskymos had to overcome the outstanding play of Thunder goaltender William Gallagher, who made 41 saves, many of them from in prime scoring spots.
 

Gallagher had his team holding a 2-1 lead entering the third period before everything changed for the Eskymos.
 

“Even though we were down 2-1 going into the third period, we talked to the boys and said we're still playing good hockey,” Eskymo Coach Andy Johnson said. “Keep doing what we're doing. We talked about moving some pucks, screens, shooting off passes, just trying to get this goalie moving. Instead of just taking that shot straight-on with him, because he was making every first save. We were having a hard time finding those rebounds.”
 

Until the third period, when Carson Hughes scored a power play goal 40 seconds into the period to tie the game, and then when the Eskymos quickly got another power play, Graham Johnson shot one from the blue line that was perfectly tipped home for another goal at the 2:28 mark. All of a sudden, Escanaba had a 3-2 lead.
 

The Eskymos were just getting started. Off the ensuing faceoff, Ben Sands, who recently moved up from defense to forward, took the puck at his own blue line.

He weaved his way through the neutral zone, burst up the right side, and made a sweet pass to Nick Martinson for a goal just 20 seconds after the Bink goal. It was 4-2.
 

“I've played defense my whole life (other than a bit here and there in youth hockey),” Sands said. “I wanted to get in the action more. I feel I've got pretty good legs and I can move pretty fast. I felt pretty good. Me and Owen (LaBonte) wanted to switch positions, we tried it in a couple of practices, and it worked.”
 

But Sands had to take faceoffs, too.
 

“I didn't know what to do,” he laughed. “I was like, I'm just swing at it. I guess it worked out, though.”
 

Before the period was over, Carter scored his second goal of the game, and Graham Johnson lit the lamp with a laser past the glove of Gallagher. Comeback complete, in a game that was filled with numerous penalties (13 of them), and not much 5-on-5 hockey.
 

“It was physical but the refs did a good job and called it both ways,” Carter said. “It sucks to get two penalties but luckily I've got some penalty killers who can work those off for me. Some of these higher-penalty games happen now and then.”
 

Carter says he's really clicking with his linemates, Graham Johnson and Carson Hughes. So, what was the message in the locker room between the second and third periods?
 

“I don't know,” Carter said. “I had to sharpen my skates, so I wasn't in there for much of it. I lost both edges on my skates. So, I was falling, every time I turned around.”
 

Carter had given Escanaba a 1-0 lead four minutes into the game with a rebound shot off of a Graham Johnson scoring chance. And Carter had two more great chances to score, but Gallagher stopped both of them.
 

In the second period, the Thunder grabbed the lead with a pair of goals. The first was on a Preston Pudvan power play goal. The second goal came on a puck that literally bounced and changed directions past a startled Eskymo goaltender Cully Hayes off the stick of Max Miller.
 

But the first four minutes of the third period changed all of that, and the Eskymos improved to 7-3-0 on the season. The Thunder, with kids from seven different schools from Pinconning to Clio, and all points in between and to the west, fell to 6-4-0.