Tuesday, March 17, 2015 1:34:59 EDT PM
Former Kirkland Lake Gold Miner defenceman Jeremy Picard-Fiset and the club have mutally agreed to part ways.
KIRKLAND LAKE - The Kirkland Lake Gold Miners and former defenceman Jeremy Picard-Fiset have mutually agreed to part ways over what team officials say are undisclosed reasons. In three seasons with the Miners Picard-Fiset played in over 150 games and accounted for 130 points. Fiset’s departure came Monday, the day before the Miners traveled to Powassan on Tuesday for games three and four of their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League eastern division series with the Voodoos.
Prior to Picard-Fiset’s departure Miners’ Head Coach and General Manager Marc Lafleur spoke about the first two games of the series at The Joe.
He stated while the team earned a split at home, when the statistics are broken down it was clear the Miners both out chanced and out shot Powassan so from his perspective they are pleased with the weekend results.
He added when it comes to looking at an opponent such as Powassan you can’t simply look at the standings and make assumptions. He pointed out team lineups are far different from the start of the season to the end of the year.
Meantime a three goal outburst in the first period gave the Miners the momentum they needed to defeat the Powassan Voodoos 4-2 Sunday in game two of their NOJHL series, thus evening the series at 1-1.
Defenceman Turk Scatliff got the Miners on the board less than three minutes into the frame on an even strength marker. Zach Pease and Jeremy Dumont picked up the assists on the play,
Then just over the halfway point of the period Jamey Lauzon made it a 2-0 game with help from Ryan Aubertin and Chris Pearson.
Less than a minute later Pease would score on the power play after tipping in a shot and it was 3-0.
Lauzon and Dumont got the helpers on the goal.
The second period saw the Voodoos come back with two goals a minute apart halfway through the period and all of a sudden it was a 3-2 game heading into the final period of regulation.
In the third period Luc Soares scored on a long shot halfway through the frame to make it a 4-2 game.
With two and a half minutes left Powassan pulled goalie Matt Young but it was to no avail as the Miners held on to win the game and tie the series.
The Miners are in Powassan tonight for game four in the series and while Ryan Swain was back in the line up Sunday after recovering from a lower body injury, Steven Babin, Connor Thie, Bryan Lubin and Tristen Hazlett remain sidelined. Lafleur says some affiliate players will again be in the line up but which ones had yet to be confirmed.
Game five in the series goes Friday night at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex. Results from games three and four will be in Friday’s edition of the Northern News.
In other NOJHL news Haileybury’s Jessie Morin was named one of Eastlink TV’s three stars of the week. The Sudbury Nickel Barons goalie was a big reason why Sudbury went 2-0 on Elliot Lake in their playoff match-up. The 19-year-old combined to make 77 saves on 80 shots in the first two contests vs. the Wildcats. Entering the second week of the playoffs, Morin sat second among all NOJHL goaltenders in save percentage at .963 and third in goals-against average at 1.50.
