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A splendid coast-to-coast dash resulted in Nolan Newton scoring four and a half minutes into overtime to lift the Greater Sudbury Cubs to a dramatic 5-4 victory over the Hearst Lumberjacks Friday, April 18th in a thrilling second contest of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League Final at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
With the result, the best-of-seven affair is now tied 1-1 and shifts to Claude Larose Recreation Centre in Hearst for Game 3, which goes Tuesday at 7 p.m.
A strong forecheck helped generate Friday’s opening tally that led to Hearst’s DonHeaven Veilleux pumping a shot on Greater Sudbury goaltender Karsen Chartier, that was stopped but defenceman Brayden Hindman came in from the point to collect the rebound and fire it through the legs of the netminder.
Coming back to tie it on a power play, 12 minutes into the first period, the Cubs’ Spencer Horgan took a play wide and went to the net where he shovelled a feed into the crease that saw Noah Kohan get a piece of the puck in a goal-mouth scramble that was inadvertently knocked in by a Lumberjacks defender.
Needing just 47 seconds into the stanza to take the lead, Horgan led an odd-man rush into the Hearst zone and worked a give-and-go with William Haley before taking a play to his left and tucking in a backhand into the open side on a netminder Alexandre Boivin.
Pulling even on a man advantage at 5:21, the visitors’ Chase Thompson neatly redirected an Adam Shillinglaw wrister from inside the blueline to give him seven tallies in the playoffs.
Picking up the second assist on the marker was Tyler Patterson, who extended a consecutive game point streak to a current NOJHL-best 11 straight outings in the process.
Looking to counter, a sharp pass up-ice by Horgan sent Eidan Macartney in alone on a breakaway midway through the match-up, but his rising attempt was denied by the shoulder of Boivin.
The Cubs did eventually take a 3-2 lead at 14:21 when Cameron Shanks spun in the high slot and whipped in a shot for his initial goal of the postseason.
Keeping his club close while home side pushed the pace, some impressive point-blank stops by Boivin in the latter stages of the session held the narrow scoreline the same after 40 minutes.
In the third, more work from the Hearst goalkeeper saw him stymie Lucas Signoretti on the penalty shot, moments after Veilleux rang a shot off the crossbar.
Eventually the Lumberjacks drew level at 8:32 when Hugo Allard fired a cross-ice feed over to Cole Miller in the right circle where he wired one into the top right-hand corner.
Building on that, they got a go-ahead marker when Aiden Kalin came out from behind the net and put the puck into the blue paint that a leaping Ouellet got a piece off and knocked it in with over seven minutes remaining.
Battling back to force extra time, Shanks hammered home an equalizer as he blasted in a one-timer in the final minute of regulation during a late power play as well as with Chartier out for an extra attacker.
In OT, Newton won it for the Cubs as he went end-to-end with speed before driving from left-to-right and ripping in the game-winner high on the Hearst netminder.
NOJHL Final (Best-of-seven series tied 1-1)
No. 1 Greater Sudbury Cubs vs. No. 2 Heart Lumberjacks
Game 1: Lumberjacks 6 Cubs 2
Game 2: Cubs 5 Lumberjacks 4 (OT)
Game 3: Tuesday, April 22 @ Hearst 7 p.m. (Claude Larose Recreation Centre)
Game 4: Wednesday, April 23 @ Hearst 7 p.m. (Claude Larose Recreation Centre)
Game 5: Friday, April 25 @ Sudbury 7:30 p.m. (Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex)
Game 6*: Monday, April 28 @ Hearst 7 p.m. (Claude Larose Recreation Centre)
Game 7*: Wednesday, April 30 @ Sudbury 7 p.m. (Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex)
* if necessary
Source: NOJHL
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