Photos: Allyson Demers
KIRKLAND LAKE, Ont. – The Hearst Lumberjacks stormed back from an early deficit and scored seven unanswered goals on their way to a 7-2 road win over the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners Wednesday in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League contest at Joe Mavrinac Community Complex.
The home town Gold Miners opened the scoring seven and a half minutes into the match-up after an errant Hearst pass allowed Kirkland Lake to go in on a two-on-one where Jacob Lamoureux took his time before eventually putting the puck across to Jacob Towindo, who promptly whipped it into the open net against Lumberjacks’ goaltender Tristan Boileau.
Notching another late in the first period, Inde Abresch skated into the visitors end, pulled up and put a play behind the net where teammate Noah Woodard returned it into the slot and saw Abresch wire a shot through the legs of Boileau.
Heading to the second stanza, Hearst got one back after winning a draw and having Adam Shillinglaw blast one from the point that flew off the end boards and hit Tyler Patterson before going in.
After controlling another face off deep in Kirkland Lake territory, the Lumberjacks drew level when Liam Boswell knocked in a loose puck on top of the crease at 16:04.
Knotted at 2-2 into the third, Hearst continued their comeback and took the lead with 8:39 remaining in regulation as Mathieu Comeau took a play between the hash marks and snapped a shot by Mole.
The Lumberjacks then came right back and tacked on two more in rapid succession to complete their comeback.
Patterson made it 4-2, seven seconds after the Comeau marker, as he went in alone and made no mistake by picking the bottom right corner.
They then saw Damien Bourdon-Lemoyne finish off his own rebound from a prime scoring area.
Finishing off the one-sided outcome, Adam Boucher sent a shot from the point, that Aiden Kalin got a piece of, before Bourdon-Lamoyne capped off the result in close.
With the victory, Hearst moves to 15-10-3-2 overall and with the loss Kirkland Lake falls to 6-19-3-1.