Photos: VoodoosHockey.com
POWASSAN, Ont. – A pair of Cameron Lemcke third period tallies broke open a scoreless tie Friday as the Powassan Voodoos went on to edge the Espanola Paper Kings 2-1 in a tight-checking Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League contest at the Powassan Sportsplex.
Some chances at both ends created opportunities for each team to cash in during the opening 20 minutes, but the night’s starting netminders, Kannon Flageolle of the Voodoos and the Paper Kings’ Jake Marois prevented from any goals from being scored.
In the middle stanza it remained a defensive goaltender’s battle as another scoreless frame sent the sides to the second intermission still in search of the game’s opening goal.
Third period play saw Powassan break the deadlock just 28 seconds into the session on a play to the net that saw Lemcke get just enough of the puck to see it get through Marois and trickle across the goal line.
Adding another during a man advantage opportunity seven minutes later Lemcke got a piece of a rising wrister from Tucker Shields up high to pick-up his second of the night.
Battling back, Espanola put an end to Flageolle’s shutout bid at 11:11, thanks to Jack Lynes, who eventually finished off multiple in-close chances his side had during a goal-mouth scramble, while on the power play.
Picking up a man advantage in the final minute, as well as pulling Marois for an additional skater, allowed the Paper Kings a chance to try to and tie it and send it to overtime, but the Voodoos held firm defensively to pick up the narrow victory.
With the outcome, Powassan gets back into the win column and raised their record to 21-9-0-1.
The close defeat sees a Paper Kings modest three-game winning streak come to a close as they dropped to 15-12-2-2 on the year.
