Powassan comes back to beat Hearst

POWASSAN, Ont. – The Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League-leading Powassan Voodoos stormed back from a two-goal deficit to defeat the Hearst Lumberjacks 5-3 Friday evening at the Powassan Sportsplex.

Hearst came out quickly and grabbed the early lead nearly three and a half minutes into the contest on Shadow Reuben’s 10th goal of the season.

The Lumberjacks then went up by a pair at 14:33 as Bradley Golant connected during a man advantage opportunity.

Up a another skater a couple shifts later it was the Voodoos that capitalized with Ryan Theriault striking shorthanded to put the home side on the board and back to within one heading into the middle stanza.

Zack Dorval would put the visitors back up by two early in the second only to see Eric Allair connect for Powassan for his first NOJHL goal in his return to Powassan after last playing for the club back during the 2015-16 campaign.

Heading into the third period, it was Voodoos who soared as they notched three unanswered tallies in the final half of the session to pull out the victory.

Eric Mondoux scored on a Powassan power play at 12:10 to knot the affair at 3-3 before Brandon MacKinnon supplied the eventual game-winner less than two minutes later.

Then with Hearst opting to pull netminder Matt Kustra late in favour of an extra attacker, it was the Voodoos’ Harrison Israels who iced it with 52 seconds to go as he scored into an empty net to round out the night’s scoring with his 23rd goal of the season.

Dominck Lavergne did assist on all three Lumberjacks’ markers in the contest.

Christian Cicigoi made 25 saves to register the win for Powassan while Kustra stopped 34 of 38 in defeat for Hearst.

Photo credit: Chris Dawson