Photos: Jeremy Seguin
FRENCH RIVER – A Kaedyn Long wrist shot from the left point that found its way in with 61 seconds left in overtime was the difference as the Powassan Voodoos pulled out a 5-4 victory over the French River Rapids Saturday night in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play at Noelville Arena.
Striking first, the hometown Rapids saw Jack Ginocchi fly down the left wing and put the puck in front where Jordan Bax was there to slide it into the open side on Voodoos’ starter Kannon Flageolle, 1:43 into the contest.
Up a skater near the midway point of the first period, French River converted on the power play thanks to Maxsim Tugolukov taking a crisp feed from behind the net by Will Bourre and whipping it past the blocker of Flageolle from the slot.
Powassan countered and got one back at 15:39 courtesy of Mathieu MacMillan, who banged one in on Brady Dyer, after the visitors controlled a faceoff deep in the Rapids zone.
Restoring their two-goal edge prior to the intermission, French River received a fortuitous bounce off a Ginocchi dump in that skipped off the end boards back in front as the Voodoos’ goalkeeper went out to play it and left Josh Russell with an empty net to deposit his 12th goal of the campaign.
Moving to the middle stanza, Powassan’s Jack Kelly made it a 3-2 game halfway through as he roofed a shot into the top left-hand corner with a rising wrister from between the hash marks for his 10th of the year.
The guests then drew level late in the period, while on a man advantage, as Rhys Smetham took a Conor O’Brien pass in close and quickly snapped it in by Dyer.
In the third, O’Brien set-up Alex Little with just over 11 minutes remaining, who fired one blocker side through a screen to make it 4-3.
Countering with an equalizer, while on the power play at 11:05, Matthew Campanella buried a nifty backhand feed from behind the goal line from Ginocchi to knot the score.
Heading to OT, Long won it as his attempt eluded Dyer and gave the Voodoos the win.
Powassan improved to 26-11-1-0 with the result while French River picked up a point in defeat as their record went to 6-30-1-1.
