TIMMINS, Ont. – A three-goal second period broke open a tie game as the Timmins Rock went on to earn a 7-2 home ice triumph Wednesday evening over the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners in a Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League contest held at McIntyre Arena in front of 711 spectators.
Tyler Fyfe staked Kirkland Lake to the night’s opening tally 13:36 into the contest to put the visitors in front.
Timmins drew level in the latter stages of the first period though thanks to a power play marker off the stick of Jordan Picard.
The Rock then went in front 5:16 into the middle stanza of Riley Robitaille’s fifth of the campaign.
A Rock man advantage helped them go up by two less than six minutes later compliments of Grant McClellan.
They then capped off their offensive outburst with just two seconds left in the frame by notching their third power play goal of the evening as C.J. Bradburn collected his 17th tally of the season.
The Gold Miners cut into the deficit while up a man themselves in the third with Fyfe potting another as he raised his team-leading goal total to 34 at 3:07.
However Timmins put the game away by striking three times in rapid succession in the latter stages of the match-up.
Jun Yi Zhong’s first NOJHL goal, came via the power play at 16:29, while Picard connected 28 seconds later to make it 6-2 before Eric Paquette’s first of the season finished things off in the final minute.
Jared Hester doled out three assists for the Rock with Bradburn adding a pair of helpers for a three-point night.
Timmins’ netminder Tyler Mastrernak faced 20 shots to record the victory.
Ryan Winter started for Kirkland Lake and suffered the loss allowing four against on 26 attempts in two periods of work while Cade McEwen turned aside 13 of 16 in relief.
Photos courtesy of  Thomas Perry, The Daily Press (Timmins)
