Blind River Beavers goalie Carson Hauger makes a right-pad save on a shot off the stick of Timmins Rock forward Evan Katic during the first period of Friday night’s NOJHL contest at the McIntyre Arena. The Rock went on to defeat the Beavers 6-1 and even their record at 1-1-0-0. Photo by THOMAS PERRY /The Daily Press
Thomas Beard’s shorthanded tally kick started Timmins Rock offence in one-sided contest
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
Brant Romaniuk scored a pair of goals and set up two others to help lead the Timmins Rock to a 6-1 win over the Blind River Beavers in their NOJHL home opener at the McIntyre Arena, Friday night.
It evened the Rock’s record at 1-1-0-0 heading into Sunday afternoon’s contest against the Soo Eagles at the McIntyre Arena.
With 10 players making their home debut in a Rock uniform, things got off to a bit of a slow start — in large part because the team spent 60 percent of the first half of the opening frame killing off penalties.
It didn’t help that Thomas Beard, one of the Rock’s top penalty killers, spent four minutes of that time in the sin bin.
Beard made up for it, however, by scoring a shorthanded marker, his first of two goals on the night and season nine minutes into the period.
Romaniuk then added the first of his two tallies on the night, a marker that would stand up to be the game-winning goal.
He doubled down just under seven minutes later, to give the Rock a 3-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
“Me, Lowsey (Lucas Lowe) and K-Mac (Kaeden McArthur) were doing really well tonight and our power play was doing really well,” Romaniuk said.
“We have good chemistry. We have worked on it over the past few years.”
The Rock forward acknowledged he had been feeling a little frustrated before the puck finally started going in for him Friday night.
“You have to stay calm and stay positive, if you want to score,” Romaniuk said. “I tried to do that tonight and things worked out.”
When he scored his first goal of the game, Romaniuk had no idea it would stand up to be the game-winner.
“We were on the PK (penalty kill) at the start of the play and (Evan) Katic dumped the puck in and I was going to go for a change, but I saw Lowsey coming out of the penalty box,” he said.
“He went to the corner and he found me and I got another rebound after (the first shot) and put it in.”
With his team trailing by three goals heading into the second period, Blind River coach and general manager Kyle Brick opted to pull starting goalie Carson Hauger, with Connor Dunham-Fox coming on in relief.
It did not matter, however, as Rock blue-liner Braedyn Cyr beat the new Beavers goalie 57 seconds into the middle frame.
Beard added his second goal of the game and season, a power-play marker, four-and-a-half minutes later to make it a 5-0 hockey game.
Blue-liner Matthew Kim added to the Rock lead six-and-a-half minutes into the third period.
The only thing left to be decided at that point was whether or not goalie Frédéric Cousineau would earn a shutout in his first start in a Rock uniform.
But Jonah McIndoo beat Cousineau for his second goal of the season with just over five minutes remaining on the clock.
That would be as close as the Beavers would come to getting back in the hockey game, however, as the Rock went on to post a 6-1 victory.
Romaniuk agreed it was important for the Rock to win the contest given how many new players the team had in the lineup Friday night.
“Our rookies played really well tonight,” he said. “I thought everyone played really well and it was a good bounce back from our last game (a 4-0 loss to the Cubs in Greater Sudbury).”
Rock coach and general manager Brandon Perry was a lot happier with what he saw from his team Friday night than he was during the loss to the Cubs last Thursday.
“We played a good solid game,” he said.
Numerous Rock players were worthy of a little extra praise from their coach following the contest.
“Thomas (Beard) was awesome tonight,” Perry said. “Obviously I didn’t like those penalties at the start but he knows that more than anybody. I don’t have to tell him that.
“He was great all night and our penalty killers did a great job. Cous (Cousineau) was great between the pipes. It was just a solid effort.
“You need your best players to be your best players and our guys were tonight. It is not just the production. Obviously, we count on them to produce, but it was just the way they played the game. We played hard between the whistles.
“Brant had a fantastic night tonight.”
The coach also liked what he saw from McArthur, whose four assists helped generate a lot of the Rock’s offence.
“It is always nice to have vets like him back in the lineup, guys who have been here and won here,” Perry said. “That experience is invaluable and K-Mac was great tonight, especially on the penalty kill.”
The Rock’s newest player, forward Maxfeld Shin, was also singled out for a little extra praise.
“He was fantastic, after he served that two (minute penalty) and 10 (minute misconduct penalty),” Perry said. “I picked him up at the airport last night, dropped him off at his billet home and went over some video with him today, told him this is how we play the game.
“He is a high skill player with a high IQ and he fit right in.”
Two of the Rock’s six goals in the contest came off the sticks of blue-liners.
“It (defensive zone coverage) was better, but we still have a long way to go,” Perry said. “We were good back there tonight. I really liked our game, all around.”
Cousineau, who stopped 31 of the 32 shots he faced, earned his first NOJHL victory.
Hauger, who turned aside 15 of the 18 shots the Rock directed his way in his 20 minutes of action, was tagged with the loss for the Beavers. Dunham-Fox blocked 28 of the 31 shots he faced in his 40 minutes of relief.
NOJHL NOTES — The Daily Press three stars of the game were Romaniuk, Beard and Kaeden McArthur … The Rock went 1-6 with the man advantage, while the Beavers were 0-6 on the power play … Official attendance at the McIntyre Arena was 887 … Friday’s other action saw the Lumberjacks top the Soo Eagles 7-4 in Hearst and the Soo Thunderbirds fly past the Paper Kings 6-4 in Espanola … The Rock will host the Eagles at the McIntyre Arena on Sunday, at 1 p.m.
