Photos: Allyson Demers
KIRKLAND LAKE, Ont. – Riding an early four-goal outburst was enough to help send the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners to an eventual 6-2 triumph versus the Espanola Paper Kings Saturday evening in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at Joe Mavrinac Community Complex.
The Gold Miners wasted little time in opening the scoring as Liam MacDonald clicked 44 seconds in as he stuffed in a loose puck off a Yosef Pievsky shot past Paper Kings’ netminder Cameron Millar.
More from the home side a couple of shifts later saw Nathan Harper redirect a Magnus Veldman attempt from the point upstairs on Millar.
Kirkland Lake kept coming and made it 3-0 at 8:50 when Harper generated a turnover that allowed Tysen Anderson to spin and whip in a short-side chance.
Not done there, Mavrik Boucher extended the lead as he put one to the net that clipped off a defender and found its way in.
Espanola got one back when Ryan Atkins took an Emerson Di Giacomo dish in the slot and wired it up over the blocker of Gold Miners’ goaltender Asher Ammann.
The teams then traded tallies in the second stanza as the Gold Miners took a 5-1 lead with Harper roofing a shot off a scrambled draw, which resulted in Mason Janicki entering in relief for Espanola.
Then Kaden Wicklander clicked with the Paper Kings up a skater as he guided in a feed put through the crease from De Giacomo.
Kirkland Lake then capped off the scoring with the lone tally in the third as Owen O’Grady tipped in a MacDonald pass on a three-on-one just over eight minutes in.
With the triumph, the Gold Miners improve to 9-2-1-0 on the season while with the loss, the Paper Kings drop to 4-8-0-0.
