TIMMINS, Ont. – The Hearst Lumberjacks broke a tie game with a pair of third period tallies to help them defeat the Timmins Rock 4-2 Tuesday evening in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League contest in front of 688 fans at McIntyre Arena.
The hometown Rock opened the night’s scoring 14 and a half minutes into the contest when Tyler Gilberds notched his 10th goal of the season.
Timmins defenceman Will Caston picked up one of the assists on the play to run a point streak to five straight games.
Hearst answered that though late in the frame when Morgan Scriber scored with 40 seconds left in the session to knot the affair at 1-1 after one.
Moving on to the middle frame, both clubs clicked quickly with C.J. Bradburn putting the Rock back in front at 3:21 as he converted on a man advantage opportunity, only to see Shadow Reuben counter 41 seconds later to tie it once again.
The visitors would take their first lead early in the third period thanks to Max Griffioen, whose 18th goal of the campaign for the Lumberjacks proved to be the game-winner.
Hearst’s Spencer Silver’s 15th added some insurance in the latter stages of the contest to round out the scoring.
Lumberjacks’ goaltender Matt Kustra made 19 saves to record the victory while Rock netminder Tyler Masternak had 17 stops in defeat.
Shaping up as a potential East Division first round playoff match-up, Hearst moved two points ahead of Timmins in the NOJHL standings, improving to 19-22-2-1 while holding two games on hand on the Rock who fell to 17-24-2-3 overall.
Photos courtesy of Thomas Perry, The Daily Press (Timmins)
