Greater Sudbury Cubs forward Daks Klinkhammer and Timmins blue-liner Braedyn Cyr battle for position as Rock forward Mavrick Boucher during Thursday night’s NOJHL opener at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex. The defending NOJHL champion Cubs went on to blank the Rock 4-0. Photos by ROB FERA /POINTS NORTH MEDIA
Generating offence has not come easy for the Rock, either in exhibition action or the start of the regular season
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
SUDBURY — While the puck may have dropped on the 2025-26 NOJHL regular season at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex Thursday night, the Timmins Rock clearly remain a work in progress.
And coach and general manager Brandon Perry was not about to claim any moral victories after his squad dropped a 4-0 decision to the defending NOJHL champion Greater Sudbury Cubs.
Holding the Cubs, who scored the second-most goals (252) during the 2024-25 campaign, to just four tallies could be viewed as a positive?
“Not really,” Perry said, when asked if things went a little better on the defensive side of the puck. “Our 16-year-old goalie (Ayden Mullen) played very good for us. It could have been a lot worse without him.
“We were okay. We had a good first period. The second period was bad. The third period was kind of like just meh.”
Mullen got the start between the pipes for the Rock because 20-year-old netminder Frédéric Cousineau was injured during an exhibition contest against the Storm in Iroquois Falls last weekend and he remains sidelined.
And forward Diego Da Silva, who came to Cousineau’s defense in that contest, missed Thursday night’s contest while serving the first game of his three-game suspension.
The Rock were also without the services of forwards Lucas Lowe (injury), Tanner Hickey (suspension), Alexandre Lapensee (injury) and Ashton Beriana (injury).
“We were missing a lot of good players out of our lineup tonight, there is no question about that, but I am focused on the guys who did play tonight,” Perry said.
“They just didn’t do a good enough job. We weren’t tough enough. We weren’t strong enough on pucks. We didn’t pay attention to the game plan and our top guys were nowhere to be found.”
Still, the coach was not willing to offer accept that as an excuse for his team’s shortcomings in the contest.
“We have to be patient, but we have been at this for a month and a half and things aren’t close to what they should look like,” he said.
“That’s the concerning part. The returning guys we did have in the lineup were a big disappointment.”
A rundown of the 18 skaters and two goalies the Rock dressed for Thursday night’s contest shows just six of them — forwards Brant Romaniuk, Kaeden McArthur and Thomas Beard, as well as blue-liners Braedyn Cyr, Matthew Kim and Zach Secord — were regulars in 2024-25.
Generating offence has not come easy for the Rock, either in exhibition action or the start of the regular season.
“We scored one goal in each of the two games against Iroquois Falls last weekend and we got shutout twice in Collingwood (Cottage Cup), then we got shutout again tonight,” Perry said.
“Our best players were still in our lineup tonight. Even if those other guys were healthy and in there, they would still have been our best players.
“We have got to find some way to generate some offence. Our power play was atrocious. We were just too casual. We just stayed on the perimeter and waited for somebody else to do the job. Those guys really need to look at themselves in the mirror and start playing up to their potential.”
In addition to Mullen, there were a couple of other Rock players who managed to avoid the coach’s dog house.
“I thought (forward) Evan Katic was really good for most of the night,” Perry said. “(Blue-liner) Jack Quevillon had a good game on our back end and we got a new player, (blue-liner) Ben Climenhaga. He flew in from Calgary and he was up at 4 a.m., flew into Sudbury and we picked him up and he had a real good night. The affiliate we had from the Majors, Gerald Southwind, had a good night, with his limited shifts.”
Other players who made their Rock debuts Thursday night included forwards Nicholas Schwertner, Jake Torres, Dylan Lale, Victor Hourtouat, Ryan Power and blue-liner William Lobanov.
In addition, Mavrick Boucher and Tyson Scott, who saw action with the Rock as affiliate players in 2024-25, made their debuts, as well. And with Cousineau out of the lineup, affiliate goalie Jaret Fenton-Chypyha (Majors) backed up Mullen.
Forward Kimani Eccleston, whom the Rock acquired from the CCHL’s Brockville Braves on July 17, remains in camp with the Ontario Hockey League’s Sudbury Wolves.
With two exhibition games remaining this weekend, the Wolves roster is down to 29 players.
Eidan Macartney scored a pair of goals, including the game-winner, to pace the offence for the Cubs, who led 1-0 after the first period and 3-0 following the middle frame, Thursday night.
Spencer Horgan and Cameron Vehkala had the other Greater Sudbury markers.
Matthew Vahramian stopped all 15 shots he faced to earn the victory and the shutout for the Cubs.
Mullen, who stopped 25 of the 29 shots he faced, was tagged with the loss for the Rock.
NOJHL NOTES — The three stars of the game were Horgan, Macartney and Vahramian … Both the Rock and the Cubs went 0-3 on the power play … Official attendance at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex was 381 … The Rock will return to action on Friday, Sept. 19, when they host the Blind River Beavers at the McIntyre Arena. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m.
