GALLERY: Rock roll to eighth-straight win, ninth-straight against K.L.

Photos: Allyson Demers

The Timmins Rock rolled to their eighth-straight victory, knocking off the Gold Miners 5-1 at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex Sunday afternoon.


Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network


KIRKLAND LAKE — The Timmins Rock rolled to their eighth-straight victory, knocking off the Gold Miners 5-1 at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex Sunday afternoon.

It gave the Rock a sweep of their two weekend games in Kirkland Lake, after they blanked the Gold Miners 6-0 Friday night.

With the victories in hand, the Rock (34-6-3-2) will carry a nine-point lead over the Lumberjacks (31-10-2-0) atop the NOJHL’s East Division standings when they visit the Claude Larose Arena in Hearst Friday night.

The Rock have won all nine games against the Gold Miners this season and posted shutouts in seven of them.

Jacob Brown came close to making that eight shutouts Sunday afternoon, losing his bid for the whitewash with 4:19 remaining in the third period.

Jake King’s power-play marker, his second goal of the season, with the Gold Miners trailing 5-0 was the lone blemish on Brown’s record.

The Rock jumped on the Gold Miners early, with Yan Bessette netting a power-play marker, his 15th goal of the season 47 seconds into the contest.

Even though the Rock outshot the Gold Miners 24-5 in the opening period that was the only puck they were able get past Kirkland Lake goalie Braydon Garnhart.

The Rock built upon their advantage in the middle frame, with Justin Charette netting a pair of goals, 11th and 12th of the season, with the first coming on the power play.

Blue-liner Felix Cadieux-Fredette followed with his eighth goal of the season to send the Rock to the dressing room for the second intermission with a 4-0 lead.

Brady Harroun added a power-play marker, his team-leading 33rd goal of the season, 1:33 into the third period.

Rock coach and general manager Brandon Perry was, for the most part, pleased with what he saw from his squad in the two games in Kirkland Lake.

“I thought we played great hockey for 110 minutes (out of 120),” he said.

“Today’s game, with about 10 minutes left in the third period we kind of let up in front of our goalie but we played two really good games, solid hockey throughout.”

There was no shortage of players who impressed their coach in the two games.

“Patty (Patrick Boivin) was great Friday night and Brownie was really good today,” Perry said.

“Yan Bessette was really good and Nolan Ring has been fantastic. He played great in both games.

“Nicholas Frederick was all over the ice and played really good hockey. He is a little bit snake-bitten right now but he was fantastic.

“All of our penalty killers did a great job in these two games.

“Pige (Captain Nicolas Pigeon) had a really good game today, just everybody.”

The Rock got forward Liam Wells back from injury for the two games.

“He was fantastic today, with a lot of jump,” Perry said.

That leaves just forward Kaeden McArthur (upper-body) on the injury list.

Brown stopped 22 of the 23 shots he faced to earn his 13th win of the season.

Garnhart, who turned aside 47 of the 52 shots the Rock directed his way, was tagged with the loss.

NOJHL NOTES — The three stars of Sunday’s game were Charette, Rock blue-liner Kenyon Nyman (two assists) and King. The Rock went 3-5 on the power play Sunday, while the Gold Miners were 1-5 with the man advantage. Official attendance at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex on Sunday was 225. Sunday’s only other action saw the Espanola Paper Kings double up the Rapids 6-3 in French River … The Rock will return to action on Friday when they take on the Lumberjacks at the Claude Larose Arena, at 7 p.m.