All the time the Whitehorse Huskies have dedicated to special teams in practice appears to have paid off as they won their first game of the Coy Cup tournament with three power play goals.

The Huskies beat the North Island Capitals 6-3 in their first game at the Coy Cup, which also featured the return of team captain Evan Campbell, who has been recovering from shoulder surgery since the fall.

“I’m pretty confident in it,” said Campbell of his shoulder after the game. “It definitely took me a couple hits because I haven’t taken any contact since the surgery so I took a couple hits and I figured I was good to go.”

Whitehorse was down by one heading into the second period.

“We had arguably the worst period of our season out there in the first,” said head coach Michael Tuton. “Spent too much time killing the penalty. We regrouped and got refocused and just started gaining momentum from there and hopefully we carry that with us tomorrow.”

Andrew Pettitt tied things up just over five minutes into the period.

Then the Capitals hit penalty trouble.

Two minutes later,Ted Stephens took hold of a man advantage to score a power play goal.

Brett Roulston added to the lead a minute later, making it 3-1 for the Huskies.

Shelby Cockell found the back of the net for the Capitals to bring it within one.

With 4:27 left in the second, Adam Henderson added another power play goal to end the period leading 4-2.

The Capitals started the third period down two players after earning penalties late into the second.

Klassen took advantage of the five-on-three and lifted the Huskies to five goals.

The Capitals’ Stewart Lee brought the team within two when he scored with 8:28 left in the third.

The Capitals pulled their goalie with two minutes remaining, but JJ Gainsforth stood strong for the Huskies, making a huge stick save to keep the Huskies up.

Gainsforth came into the game just over four minutes into the second period after starting goalie Jon Olthuis was injured in a collision with the Capital’s Jack Kennelly. Kennelly was shoved into the goalie and landed on top of him in the crease.

Olthuis skated off the ice and headed to the dressing room.

Tuton said then when Olthuis came off the ice he said he wasn’t feeling right and will see a doctor this afternoon.

Olthuis is “questionable at best,” to skate in tonight’s game against the Terrace River Kings, said Tuton.

Henderson sealed the game for the Huskies with an empty-netter with 18 seconds remaining.

NOTES: The Whitehorse Huskies wore white Yukon Hockey jerseys as they found out late that the North Island Capitals only had black jerseys.

NEXT: Whitehorse (1-0-0) faces the Terrace River Kings (0-1-0) tonight at Takhini Arena at 7 p.m.