TIMMINS, Ont. – Timmins Rock netminder Konrad Simard was spotless once again, posting his second-straight Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League shutout Sunday afternoon in a 7-0 triumph over the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners at McIntyre Arena.
The hometown Rock opened the scoring nearly six minutes into the match-up as Liam Wells fired a low shot off a face-off win on the right side that eluded Gold Miners’ goalkeeper Keaton Lyons.
With that, toques, mitts and scarves came pouring down from the stands, onto the ice, which will be shared with those in need during the holiday season, and beyond, as part of a game-day community endeavour held by the club.
On a two-man advantage that carried over to the second period, Timmins used the fresh ice to neatly move the puck around and make it 2-0 when Henry Brock quickly whipped in his sixth of the season when he finished off a nice feed from behind the net from Nicolas Pigeon.
Blowing it open, the Rock then scored four times in a three and a half minute span to take control of the contest on tallies by Tyler Schwindt, Riley Brousseau, Christopher Engelbert and Pigeon to chase Lyons in favour of back-up Zachary Reddy.
Schwindt’s marker was a man-down effort as he picked up a turnover, flew down the right wing, then wired one, blocker side, to make it 3-0 at 6:14.
A couple of shifts later, Brousseau got into the act by taking a crisp cross-ice feed from Dylan McElhinny and ripping it into the open corner.
The vaunted Timmins power play then went to work with Engelbert completing a nice set-up from teammates Nicholas Frederick and Brousseau.
They then capped off their offensive outburst before the game was half complete thanks to Pigeon banging in a loose puck in front on Reddy, who had entered thecontest after the fifth Rock marker.
Taking their big lead into the third period, the hosts held firm defensively then rounded out the scoring in the late going when Cameron Dutkiewicz cranked one from the left circle at 16:29 to give him goals in four consecutive outings.
Making 17 saves and with his back-to-back shutouts, Simard has not allowed a goal-against in his past 138 minutes and 43 seconds of game action, while also improving to 6-0-0-0 on the campaign.
Lyons suffered the defeat for Kirkland Lake giving up five on 24 chances while Reddy handled 15 of 17 in lengthy relief.
