GALLERY: Face-paced 3rd period sees Gold Miners slip past Rapids

KIRKLAND LAKE, Ont. – The Kirkland Lake Gold Miners picked up a pair of goals and an assist from Tyler Fyfe to help them slip past the French River Rapids 4-3 Saturday evening in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex.

Game action was scoreless into the latter stages of the opening period when French River got on the board at 17:33 as high-scoring Gregory Trudeau-Paquet collected his 11th of the season to join the league leaders in that category.

Kirkland Lake got that back in the middle stanza as William Mizuik notched his seventh to tie it at 5:16.

They then went in front eight and a half minutes later seeing Fyfe score for an eighth time in the campaign.

A free-wheeling portion of the third saw the two teams erupt for two tallies apiece in a two and a half minute span.

After the Rapids’ Donny Schultz tied it at 6:26, the Gold Miners’ Fyfe added another on the next shift.

Not to be out done, French River drew level once more thanks to Brayton Crowe’s first at 7:40.

The back and forth action continued with the home side regaining the lead yet again as Marshal Nikitin made it 4-3 in what turned out to be the final offensive effort of the night.

Nikitin also added two assists to go along with his game-winner.

Cade McEwen finished with 24 stops to post the victory for Kirkland Lake.

Andrew Rocha started for the Rapids and suffered the loss allowing the four against on 28 attempts in 49 minutes of work while Spencer Eschyhcyn handled the one shot he saw in relief.

With the result the Gold Miners have now gone 5-1-2-1 in their past nine outings while securing points in eight of them and have now moved into second place in the NOJHL East standings, one point clear of both French River and the idle Cochrane Crunch.

Photos courtesy of CapturingTheMoment.ca