Timmins Rock goalie Ayden Mullen makes a glove-hand save on a point shot as blue-liner Matthew Kim shadows Iroquois Falls Storm forward Landon Trethewey during the third period of Sunday afternoon’s NOJHL contest at the McIntyre Arena. Mullen made 41 saves and Kim scored a pair of goals to help lead the Rock to a 5-2 win over the Storm. Photo by THOMAS PERRY /The Daily Press
Blue-liner Matthew Kim scored a pair of goals to help kick start Timmins Rock offence
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
Ayden Mullen made 41 saves to backstop the Timmins Rock to a 5-2 win over the Iroquois Falls Storm at the McIntyre Arena, Sunday afternoon.
It was the first home-ice start for the 16-year-old Kingston product who lowered his goals against average to 2.25, while improving his save percentage to .934 — third best in the NOJHL.
“It felt great, it felt amazing,” Mullen said, when asked to describe how it felt to win his first start on home ice in front of 613 Rock fans.
“Taking things game by game, I would say I am having a good season so far.”
In three starts on the road, Mullen recorded a pair of victories and one loss and earned his first career NOJHL shutout against the Hearst Lumberjacks during the recent Showcase in Sudbury.
“I just want to keep improving with each game,” he said.
The Rock scored two goals nine seconds apart late in the opening period to jump in front in the hockey game.
Thomas Beard got the puck rolling when he netted his fifth goal of the season, with 2:38 remaining in the frame.
And Ryan Armitage followed with his first goal of the campaign to give the Rock a 2-0 advantage heading into the first intermission.
Kaeden McArthur added his fourth goal of the season just over a minute into the middle frame and it looked like the Rock were off to the races.
The Storm were not about to go down without a fight, however, and they scored twice in a three-and-a-half minute span to make it a one-goal hockey game.
Lucas Willoughby netted his fifth marker of the campaign just over two minutes after McArthur had expanded the Rock advantage.
Alex Bedic followed with his third tally of the season, but that would be as close as the Storm would come to getting back on even terms, as Mullen slammed the door on Iroquois Falls.
“I knew we had to keep the lead,” he said, noting the importance of not letting the Storm tie things up.
“There was one save that was really difficult, on a backdoor pass in the second period. It was a tough stop to make because of the change in direction.”
Blue-liner Matthew Kim scored his fourth goal of the season four-and-a-half minutes into the third period, to put the Rock in front 4-2.
Then, with 1:20 remaining in regulation, he deposited his fifth goal of the season into an empty Iroquois Falls net, with Storm goalie Alex Hall on the bench in favour of an extra attacker.
With Sunday afternoon’s victory, the Rock now sport a record of 6-4-0-0, good for a share of fifth place in the NOJHL standings. Meanwhile, the Storm (6-5-0-0) also have 12 points, but they have played one more game than the Rock.
“Everything starts in practice,” Mullen said, pointing to what the Rock need to do to consistently win more hockey games than they lose.
“We just need to practice hard, play our systems and execute and I think we will be the team to beat this season.”
Mullen isn’t totally convinced being a right-hand catching goalie — a rarity in the NOJHL and most leagues — gives him an advantage over shooters.
“It’s just part of my game and it’s great to have it,” he said.
Rock coach and general manager Brandon Perry admitted Sunday afternoon’s victory wasn’t his squad’s best game of the season, but he was happy to collect the two points just the same.
“I thought the first 22 minutes, we played good hockey, but we took way too many penalties for guys to get into the flow of the game,” he said.
“Some guys had to sit for long periods of time when we were in the penalty box so much.
“Our penalty killers did a fantastic job and obviously your goalie has to be your best penalty killer and he (Mullen) was this afternoon.”
The coach was once again impressed with the poise of his 16-year-old goaltender.
“He (Mullen) has been fantastic all year,” Perry said. “Played that first game against Collingwood on the back to back (at the Cottage Cup) and we kind of let him down, but ever since that game I haven’t seen him play a bad game.
“He is a pretty special kid and he is doing a great job for us.”
The coach like what he saw offensively from Kim, who had two of the Rock’s five goals Sunday afternoon.
“Obviously, the two goals for sure helped our team, but he needs to settle things down a little bit,” Perry said. “He knows that and he is a really great defender, no issues there. He just needs to be a more efficient puck mover.”
Perry had a little extra praise for a number of other Rock players, as well.
“I thought our penalty killers did a fantastic job, all of them, and I thought Victor Hourtouat gave us some really good minutes for the amount of ice time he got,” he said.
“Same with Kats (Evan Katic), who did a good job on the penalty kill. I thought Brant Romaniuk was good all night. Ryan Armitage was really great tonight, as well. It is really nice to have him back.
“Then, things just dropped off a little bit from there, a little bit of laziness in some of our games, guys trying to do too much on their own.”
Perry agreed there are a lot of similarities between Hourtouat and a young Lucas Lowe, who is now in his fourth season in a Rock uniform.
“Victor is so strong with his body when he wants to be,” he said. “He kind of gets himself into trouble when he doesn’t use his body and reaches in for pucks, but he has a really high ceiling. He just has to be a consistent player. We are super happy with him.”
The only real downside to Sunday afternoon’s victory is the team lost forward Kimani Eccleston, who was making his home ice debut in a Rock uniform, late in the third period.
“He cut his leg open with his own skate,” Perry said. “Apparently, it is pretty bad. He is going to get stitched up.”
The coach summed things up quite nicely.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we will take it,” Perry said.
Mullen stopped 41 of the 43 shots he faced to earn his third win of the season for the Rock.
Hall, a Timmins product, was tagged with the loss after turning aside 32 of the 36 shots the Rock directed his way.
NOJHL NOTES — The Daily Press three stars of the game were Mullen, Kim and Hall … The Rock were 0-2 on the power play, while the Storm were 0-4 with the man advantage … Official attendance at the McIntyre Arena was 613 … Sunday’s other action saw the Lumberjacks top the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners 8-3 in Hearst, the Thunderbirds stop the French River Rapids 6-4 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and the Greater Sudbury Cubs edge the Beavers 4-3 in overtime in Blind River … The Rock will return to action on Friday when they host the Espanola Paper Kings at the McIntyre Arena in the first half of a home-and-home series, at 7:30 p.m.
