TIMMINS, Ont. – A pair of first period power play goals helped propel the Timmins Rock to a 4-1 Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League triumph over the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners Sunday at McIntyre Arena.
Timmins’ captain Tyler Schwindt put the home side on the board 5:39 into the contest as he took a nice back-pass from Nicolas Pigeon and stuffed in his ninth of the campaign, putting it into the open side, from the right of Gold Miners’ netminder Glen Crandall.
Answering back just over three minutes later, Kirkland Lake drew level thanks to Andronique Stephanian, who darted down the left wing, cut in on a Rock defender and lifted a backhand that beat Timmins goalkeeper Gavin McCarthy.
Special teams helped the hosts get back on track as they connected twice with the man advantage in the latter stages of the first frame to take a 3-1 lead to the intermission.
Cameron Dutkiewicz notched the initial extra-skater marker at 11:28 as he cranked a one-timer from the point in the middle of the ice.
The Rock then saw Justin Charette convert four minutes later as he finished off some crisp passing by burying one from between the hashmarks.
Building on that, Tyler Gilberds made it 4-1 just 20 seconds into the middle stanza as he finished off a nice cross-crease pass from Riley Brousseau, with earlier help courtesy of Tyler Patterson.
It stayed that way the rest of session as Timmins took their three-goal cushion into the third.
There was no further scoring in the last period as well before time expired.
Throughout the match-up the Rock showed their defensive capabilities, only allowing one-goal against and have now only given up a league-low 21 tallies on the season while moving into top spot in the overall NOJHL standings with 17 points and a 8-0-1-0 record.
Shots on net finished up 34-24 in Timmins’ favour with McCarthy picking up the win while Crandall suffered the defeat.
Game Photos:
Thomas Perry – The Daily Press/Postmedia Network