A pair of big road wins has the Delta Ice Hawks right in the thick of a three-team race for first place overall in the Pacific Junior Hockey League.
A natural hat trick from Daniel Rubin on Sunday night led the Ice Hawks to a 4-0 win over the Grandview Steelers at the Burnaby Winter Club. That result came 48 hours after a 6-2 victory in Abbotsford — giving Delta a sweep of the fifth and fourth overall teams in the PJHL.
With six games remaining, the Hawks (26-7-2-1) have won four straight and can move within two points of the front-running North Vancouver Wolf Pack (30-8-0-1) with a victory on Tuesday night at home against the last place Surrey Knights (1-37-0-1). The Wolf Pack have a key home-and-home series with the third place Richmond Sockeyes (25-8-2-1) beginning on Thursday night.
The Ice Hawks and Sockeyes will also square off next Tuesday in Ladner for the final time this season in what is shaping up to be a huge game.
Rubin broke a scoreless deadlock 1:36 into the final period and struck again 10 minutes later, before competing his hat trick with 4:38 remaining. The 20-year-old sits third in league scoring with 57 points, including 25 goals in what has been a career season for the Richmond native.
Brad Fortin added an empty netter while Jordy Engelson made 22 saves for his second shutout of the season. Jordan Deyrmenjian and Jihwan Kim each had two assists.
In Abbotsford, the Ice Hawks jumped out to an early 4-0 second period lead over the Pilots and cruised to victory.
Alex Suprynowicz, Jordin Kojima, Rubin, Deyrmenjian and Kim looked after the scoring. Engleson made 32 saves.
