FRENCH RIVER – The French River Rapids picked up a pair of tallies from Alex Paul, including the game-winner, to help send them on their way to an eventual 5-3 victory over the Blind River Beavers Sunday in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League action at Noelville Arena.
The hometown Rapids opened the scoring midway through the first period thanks to Paul’s third tally of the season.
Special teams allowed French River to go up by two early in the middle stanza on a Stephan Calisti power play effort at 2:20.
Gregory Trudeau-Paquet added another 10 minutes later as he struck shorthanded for his for his ninth goal of the campaign.
Heading into the final frame, the Rapids upped their lead to four on Paul’s second of the contest.
Blind River came back with a couple of quick strikes, a minute and a half apart, midway through the period thanks to Jacob Papesh and the surging Owen Robinson.
Robinson also assisted on the Papesh effort before supplying his league-leading 20th point as he has etched his name on the scoresheet in all 13 games his club has played so far this season.
However Levi Siau added some insurance for French River at 18:14 before the Beavers’ Jack Rudin rounded out the scoring with 26 seconds remaining.
Connor Loft dished out three assists for the Rapids in the victory.
Jean-Marc Brisson started for the Rapids and stopped all 28 shots he faced in two periods of work to pick up the win before being replaced by Spencer Eschyshcyn to begin the third.
Eschyshcyn made 15 saves on 18 attempts in relief with Blind River’s Bob Parenteau facing 24 shots in defeat.