TIMMINS, Ont. – A Nathan Harper man advantage marker deep into the second period held up as the game-winner as the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners went on to edge the Timmins Rock 3-2 in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League Sunday matinee at McIntyre Arena.
With the victory, Kirkland Lake secures the eighth and final NOJHL playoff spot and will meet the top-seeded Greater Sudbury Cubs in quarter-final action, upon the conclusion of the regular season.
It was the hometown Rock who kicked off the scoring five and a half minutes into the matchup as Maxfeld Shin darted down the right wing with speed on a two-on-one and sent a pass across to Nolan Masson, who quickly ripped it over the shoulder of Gold Miners’ goaltender Glen McInnes into the top left corner.
Coming back to tie it on the power play at 11:25, Kirkland Lake’s Mavrik Boucher neatly worked a nice give-and-go with Cayden Kowal and pumped it past Timmins’ starter Virgil Sausset-Plateaux.
Up a skater themselves late in the first period, Masson slammed in his second of the session off the rebound via a Brady Bouchard point blast.
Heading to the middle stanza, the Gold Miners drew level once again on the tail-end of a man advantage after Jack Nolan snagged a loose puck in the left circle, and after a quick move, wired one by the blocker of Sausset-Plateaux at 4:37.
Some crisp work on the power play by the visitors put them back on top as Harper, parked in close, neatly redirected in a sharp slap-pass off the stick of Boucher for his 20th of the campaign.
Moving to the third period, a big pad save by Sausset-Plateaux on a Tysen Anderson breakaway five minutes in kept it at 3-2.
Getting their goalie out for an extra attacker in the late going, Timmins pushed to pull even and send it to overtime, but the stellar netminding of McInnes, who was solid throughout, shut the door to wrap-up the postseason berth for Kirkland Lake.
The result marks a third consecutive triumph for the Gold Miners over the Rock as they improved to 17-26-0-7 overall.
In defeat, Timmins fell to 33-13-0-4.
Game Photos:
Thomas Perry – The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
