NORTHERN ONTARIO JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
NOJHL COMMUNICATIONS
MEDIA UPDATE
Release Date: Friday, Jan. 24, 2014
Third period comebacks highlight NOJHL play Friday
SUDBURY – It was a night of impressive third period comebacks in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League Friday as the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners rallied to defeat the Espanola Rivermen 4-2 while the Elliot Lake Bobcats exploded for seven tallies in the final frame to stun the North Bay Trappers 8-4.
KIRKLAND LAKE GOLD MINERS 4 ESPANOLA RIVERMEN 2 – The hometown Gold Miners stormed back from a two-goal deficit with four unanswered efforts in the late going to double up the Rivermen at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex.
Blake Peavey staked the visitors to the lead with the only marker of the opening session, which came at 16:42.
Espanola extended their cushion to 2-0 after 40 minutes as Brennen Dubchak connected on the power play with six and a half minutes to go in the second as he notched his 28th goal of the season while also extending an impressive consecutive game point streak to an NOJHL-high 21 straight contests.
It was all Kirkland Lake in the final half of the third however starting with Samuel Wilbur getting the Miners on the board with just 6:04 to play.
Wilbur then proceeded to set-up Ethan Strong for goals 44 seconds apart to put them up 3-2 with less than four minutes to play.
Steven Babin then completed the comeback with an insurance marker at 18:54 to round out the late third period outburst.
Wilbur now has 14 points in his past four games with his club.
Jeremy Pominville made 21 saves to register the victory for Kirkland Lake while Marc Terriault faced 32 shots in a losing cause for Espanola.
ELLIOT LAKE BOBCATS 8 NORTH BAY TRAPPERS 4 – Trailing 3-1 entering the third period Elliot Lake erupted with an offensive onslaught to pull out an impressive win over North Bay at Centennial Arena.
Each side found the back of the net once via the power play in the opening session with Max Glashauser connecting for the Bobcats and Duane Wainman replying for the Trappers.
North Bay struck twice in the middle stanza to go up a pair with Wainman adding his second of the night and then setting up Ryan Demyen, who also assisted on the first two Trappers tallies.
Glashauser and Dustin Coredeiro levelled the proceedings with efforts a minute and a half apart in the third only to see North Bay go back on top at 7:42 thanks to Chance Thomas.
From there the Bobcats offensive barrage saw successive strikes from Brad Holman, Aaron Carmichael, Brett Wagner, Damon Reeves and one final marker by Cordeiro with 29 seconds to go to finish off the scoring burst for Elliot Lake.
In all 13 different Bobcats skaters picked up at least one point in the contest.
Alex Bitsakis entered the game after the fourth North Bay goal and ended up picking up the win in relief stopping all five shots he faced. Starter Matt Young had 28 pucks fired his way in his time in net.
Trappers’ netminer Lucas Paulsen suffered the setback for North Bay allowing five on 45 shots with affiliate Colten Point seeing three of eight attempts elude him during a late third period appearance in goal.
Three more games are on the NOJHL docket Saturday with Espanola meeting Abitibi, Elliot Lake tangling with Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury squaring off with Blind River in a trio of 7:30 p.m. starts.
