With the victory, the Lumberjacks take a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven NOJHL semifinal series and push the Rock to the brink of elimination
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
The Hearst Lumberjacks scored twice in the final 3:18 of regulation to rally for a 4-3 win over the Timmins Rock at the McIntyre Arena Tuesday night.
With the victory, the Lumberjacks take a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven NOJHL semifinal series and push the Rock to the brink of elimination.
The Rock had defeated the Lumberjacks 4-2 in Game 3 of the series at the McIntyre Arena, Monday night.
After his squad came so close deadlocking the series at 2-2, despite having four key players out of the lineup due to injuries, Rock coach and general manager Brandon Perry was at a loss for words.
“No, there’s not,” he said when asked if there is a more frustrating way to lose a hockey game.
“Our special teams are a joke right now and it’s killing us.”
The Rock did manage to score their first power-play goal of the series, but a 1-17 success rate is nothing to write home about.
Even worse, the Rock allowed yet another shorthanded goal in Tuesday night’s contest — the fifth they have surrendered in the first four games of the series.
And the penalty kill was a non-factor, as the Lumberjacks capitalized on their lone man advantage opportunity in the contest.
Perry knows the Rock will have to pull together a solid effort in Game 5 of the series in Hearst Friday night if they want to extend it to Game 6 back in Timmins Monday night.
“We are going to have to watch the video (of Tuesday night’s game), look at the good moments, the bad moments,” he said. “Take the good and fix the bad, go steal a game on the road.”
In other words, focus on the things the Rock did correctly to establish 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 leads in Tuesday’s hockey game.
“Nothing in particular,” Perry said, when asked what the Rock had been doing right to gain those advantages. “We were just playing hockey and then it just got away from us. Our special teams killed us. Our power play keeps getting scored on. Guys are so lazy on it. We don’t want to move the puck, even at the end there, six-on-four, I don’t know. It’s personnel, for sure, guys I trusted or thought I trusted. Keep putting them out there, keep giving them chances and they keep letting me down.”
The Rock likely won’t be getting any reinforcements from the team’s walking wounded, as forwards Jack Kelly (upper-body injury) and Brant Romaniuk (upper-body injury), as well as blue-liners Ethan Albert (lower-body injury) and Sam Gallagher (upper-body injury) all remain week-to-week at this point.
The Rock jumped out to a 1-0 lead shortly after the midway point in the opening period, as captain Tenzin Nyman scored the Rock’s first power-play goal of the series and his first marker of the 2025 playoffs.
Chase Thompson’s shorthanded tally, his first of two goals in the game and fourth of the playoffs, 7:53 into the middle frame, got the Lumberjacks back on even terms.
Clark Scaddan restored the Rock’s lead less than two minutes later, as he netted his third goal of the playoffs.
The Lumberjacks managed to tie things up before the second intermission, however, as Henry Ouellet scored a power-play marker, his third goal of the playoffs, and the teams head into the second intermission tied at 2-2.
Kaeden McArthur scored his first goal of the playoffs five minutes into the third period to give the Rock their third lead of the night.
But Thompson scored his second goal of the night and fifth of the playoffs for the Lumberjacks with 3:18 remaining in regulation to deadlock things at 3-3.
And captain Adam Shillinglaw followed with his third goal of the playoffs with 2:32 remaining on the clock to give the Lumberjacks their first lead of the game.
Just over a minute later, the Rock were handed a golden opportunity to get back on even terms when Thompson was assessed a two-minute minor penalty for head contact and a 10-minute misconduct.
The Rock pulled goalie Dryden Riley in favour of an extra attacker to create a six-on-four advantage, but they had difficulty gaining the Lumberjacks zone and maintaining possession of the puck.
As a result, the final seconds ticket off the clock with the Rock unable to get back on even terms.
Perry felt the Rock once again received solid goaltending from Riley.
“He gave us a chance to win the game, but we let him down,” Perry said.
Not many other Rock players earned praise from their coach, although the line of McArthur, Scaddan and Reece Liu was solid, as well.
“Yeah, they were good and we had some good moments during the game, just not enough of them,” Perry said. “Whether it’s because we are not healthy enough, or whatever, we just don’t have enough, we don’t pay attention to the details enough. We give up too much in D Zone coverage and, obviously, special teams are the biggest factor in this series right now.”
Lumberjacks coach Marc-Alain Begin was more than happy with the outcome of Tuesday night’s contest and the 3-1 series lead his squad is taking back to Hearst.
“Any time you can come back in the third period in a barn like the McIntyre Arena, it’s always a good feeling,” he said.
“I have to give credit to our boys, they battled hard after Timmins made it 3-2 and it was just a matter of time before the puck was going to go in because Riley made some unbelievable saves in the third period to keep them in front.”
The Lumberjacks coach was asked why his team has managed to generate so much offence while killing penalties in the series.
“We are trying to pressure them at the blue-line and it has been working for us,” Begin said.
“We are going to keep at it and hopefully we can get a few more on Friday.”
The coach liked what he saw from Thompson’s game Tuesday night.
“We have a lot of guys up front who can put the puck in the net,” Begin said. “We saw it with (Tyler) Patterson Monday and we saw it with Chase today. Even with one of our better guys, Liam Boswell, out, we still have plenty of firepower. It’s next man up and I think everyone can contribute on offence, for sure.”
The Lumberjacks get plenty of offence from their blue-line, as well, as Shillinglaw illustrated late in the third period.
“He is the best defenceman in our league,” Begin said. “He can play on the offensive side (of the puck) and he can play on the defensive side. He does it all and we are really happy to have him. He jumped into the play on our last goal. He saw the opportunity to go and Hugo Allard made a nice play and Adam just had to put his stick on it.”
The coach agreed it’s almost like having a fourth forward on the ice when Shillinglaw gets involved in the offence.
“We have a couple of guys like that, with William Pâquet,” Begin said. “He missed the second half of the season with an injury and since he has been back, he has just been rock solid for us. We are really happy with our D and we are playing good right now.”
They were not the only Lumberjacks who impressed their coach in Game 4.
“Mathieu Comeau was everywhere tonight,” Begin said. “He created so many chances for his linemates and for himself. When he plays like that, when he plays hard hockey, he is very hard to stop.
“We just got the line of Ouellet, Aiden Kalin and DonHeaven Veilleux going and once they are going, they are going we are going to be okay.”
Begin knows how important it will be for the Lumberjacks to end the series at home Friday night.
“No team in our league wants to come back to the McIntyre Arena,” he said. “It’s a hostile environment to play in, so we are going to have to do everything we can to finish the series off in Hearst. The boys will be ready.”
Lumberjacks goalie Alexandre Boivin turned aside 16 of the 19 shots the Rock directed his way to earn his seventh win of the 2025 playoffs.
Riley, who stopped 28 of the 32 shots he faced, was tagged with the loss.
NOJHL NOTES — The Daily Press three stars of the game were Thompson, McArthur and Shillinglaw … The Rock went 1-5 on the power play, while the Lumberjacks were 1-1 with the man advantage … Official attendance at the McIntyre Arena was 793 … Tuesday other action saw the Greater Sudbury Cubs double up the Soo Thunderbirds 6-3 to take a 3-0 lead in that best-of-seven semifinal series … The Rock will travel to Hearst for Game 5 in their semifinal series at the Claude Larose Recreation Centre on Friday, at 7 p.m.
