TIMMINS, Ont. – A frenzied Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League affair Friday night saw the Timmins Rock strike twice in the late going to pull-out a 5-4 victory versus the Espanola Paper Kings at McIntyre Arena.
Scoring first, the visiting Paper Kings connected, 7:14 into the contest, when Kyle den Ouden went in on the left side and put a play across, through the crease, that Jack Lynes collected and jammed into the open side on a sprawled Rock goaltender Patrick Boivin.
Going ahead by two late into an extended power play, Espanola’s Owen Fergusson battled in front before stuffing in his 20th tally of the season at 6:13 of the second period.
Coming right back, Timmins got on the board just over a minute later when Brant Romaniuk ran a point streak to four as he went in alone and made a couple of moves before tucking one between the legs of Paper Kings’ netminder Jake Marois.
Answering with an equalizer, while up a skater, just over four minutes into the third, the Rock’s Kaeden McArthur drove hard around the net and saw the puck make it’s way in front where a waiting Lucas Lowe slammed it in from between the hash marks.
Another extra-man effort then gave them the lead when Mason Svarich skated into the left circle and pumped one past a partially screened Marois.
Coming back to tie it with just over seven minutes remaining, on a delayed penalty, Espanola’s Graydon Guthrie whipped in a short side attempt on Boivin.
Guthrie then came right back and notched another after dumping one off the side boards to Cayden Kowal, who worked it back and left him with nothing but net to score in.
However, Timmins’ league-leading power play went to work to level the score once more as Svarich pumped in a Romaniuk feed at 16:36.
Capping off the high-scoring final frame, McArthur banged in the game-winner off a feed across from Jack Kelly to complete the wild back-and-forth affair.
With the victory, the Rock raise their record to 19-9-2-0 and with the loss, the Paper Kings drop to 18-13-0-0.
Game Photos:
Thomas Perry – The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
