Photos: Cassy Seguin
FRENCH RIVER – Buoyed by a two-goal, one-assist effort from Hunter Vilanez, the French River Rapids rebounded from an early deficit to clip the Espanola Paper Kings 5-2 in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League match-up Sunday at Noelville Arena.
Wasting little time in opening the scoring, Espanola’s Jason Galante connected 54 seconds into the contest by racing down the left wing and chipping his chance over the blocker of French River goaltender Zachary Burleigh.
Converting on the afternoon’s initial man advantage opportunity, the Paper Kings went up by a pair thanks to Samuel Gravel, who jumped in the back door from the point and snapped in a down-low feed from Graydon Guthrie.
Getting one of their own on the power play, Vilanez put the Rapids on the board at 12:05 as he pumped in an attempt from the right circle past netminder James Meredith.
Drawing even early in the second, French River’s Noah Szczurek side-stepped around an Espanola skater in the neutral zone, then led a rush up ice before putting a pass across to Alexandre Dubuc, who took it wide and deposited the equalizer.
The home side then went in front right off the opening face-off to begin the third period as Michael Leech snagged a bouncing puck off a Paper Kings’ defender that led to him feeding a backhand across to Bryson Villeneuve, who ripped it over the shoulder of Meredith, just seven seconds into the session.
Adding to their lead at 12:47, Cameron Jansa made it 4-2 Rapids as Vilanez hit him with a long stretch pass from his own zone that sent him in alone where he put it up high into the net.
Vilanez then sealed the come from behind triumph with an extra-man effort as he steered in a cross-ice set-up from Dominic Bzdyl to wrap-up the afternoon’s result.
