POWASSAN, Ont. – Two tallies each in the second and third periods helped send the Timmins Rock to an eventual 4-1 victory over the Powassan Voodoos Saturday in a highly-anticipated Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League affair Saturday at the Powassan Sportsplex.
As expected, it was a tightly-contested opening 20 minutes between the top two teams in the NOJHL standings, points wise, in the first period.
The only tally of the session came 4:45 in as Ryan Mills potted his 11th goal of the season with help from Parker Bowman and Gregory Trudeau-Paquet.
With the assists, Bowman and Trudeau-Paquet both extended consecutive game point streaks to six in succession.
Battling back late in the middle stanza, Timmins converted twice in rapid succession to first knot the affair, then take the lead.
There Tyler Gilberds drew the Rock level at 16:27 while teammate Josh Anderson put the guests in front right after that as he clicked quickly into a man advantage opportunity.
The visitors then added to their cushion with under six minutes remaining in regulation on an insurance effort provided off the stick of Josh Dickson.
Getting their goalie out for an extra attacker in the final minute, Powassan gave up an empty net effort provided by Riley Brousseau.
Chipping in with two assists in the triumph for the Rock was defenceman Anderson, who had a three-point night.
Timmins starter Tyler Masternak made 27 stops to pick up the win while Voodoos netminder Christian Cicigoi faced 39 attempts in defeat.
With the result, the Rock move back into a tie for first overall in the league standings with the Voodoos as they improved to 29-6-1-1 while Powassan slipped to 30-7-0-0.