ESPANOLA, Ont. – Lucas Piekarczyk’s second goal of the game, coming 3:42 into the third period proved to be the decider as the Timmins Rock came back to edge the Espanola Paper Kings 4-3 Saturday in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League affair held at the Regional Recreation Complex.
It was the Paper Kings’ Lucas Signoretti who struck shorthanded nearly four minutes into the contest, to commence the scoring, as he used a Timmins defender as a screen and ripped a rising shot over the glove of Rock netminder Patrick Boivin.
Down a skater again later in the first period, Signoretti converted again as he powered down the right wing and fired an attempt on goal that was stopped by Boivin, but he skated right into the rebound and buried it.
Timmins did have a chance to get on the board after they were awarded a penalty shot when an Espanola defender had been ruled to have covered the puck with his hand in the crease.
On the chance, Kaeden McArthur skated in for the Rock, but his opportunity was stymied by the right pad of netminder Jake Marois.
They did get one back before the intermission though thanks to Lucas Lowe at 17:27 as he came on the ice during a line change, then dashed into Paper Kings’ territory and hammered one by Marois from the left faceoff dot.
The Rock then came out quickly to commence the middle frame as they connected just 11 seconds in on a play that Nicolas Pigeon put across to Piekarczyk behind the net, who came out and tucked one in on the short side to knot the affair at 2-2.
Regaining the lead, Espanola’s Blake Peters-Davey clicked on the power play as he tucked in a loose puck off a left-point blast from Conor Walton.
Answering again before the break, McArthur did capitalize on this chance was he came down the left wing on a two-on-one where he choose to shoot and made no mistake with a rising wrist shot.
Pieksrczyk then got the game-winner in the final frame on a drive to the net by Brady Harroun who put a cross-crease feed over for a tap-in.
Boivin then shut the door the rest of the way for Timmins in collecting his NOJHL-leading 13th win of the season.
