TIMMINS, Ont. – Collecting a pair of tallies from Kaeden McArthur, including his Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League-leading third game-winner of the playoffs, the Timmins Rock went on to take down the Hearst Lumberjacks 5-1 Wednesday, with close to 1,200 spectators on hand, in the fourth game of their semifinal at McIntyre Arena.
This sees Timmins sweep the best-of-seven affair in four straight and they’ll now move on to meet the Greater Sudbury Cubs for the NOJHL championship and the Copeland Cup – McNamara Trophy.
The hometown Rock opened the scoring 4:22 into the contest when affiliate Ian Lachance, who was making his playoff debut, took a pass from behind the net by Evan Katic into the slot and snapped a shot past Lumberjacks’ goaltender Jack Helkie.
More from Timmins midway through the first period saw McArthur kick up the puck on a play put his way by Maxx Hamelin, then carried it over the blueline, where he lifted an attempt from between the circles that clipped off the glove of Helkie and dropped into the net.
Building on that, the Rock tacked on another at 12:15 as Ryan Armitage finished off a crisp passing play with Nolan Masson and Thomas Beard.
That resulted in Hearst opting to make a goaltending change as back-up William Stonehouse entered in long relief.
Extending their edge four in the middle stanza, McArthur broke in on a mini two-on-one and put a feed over to Hamelin who put it back off the skate of McArthur and into the open corner.
Timmins kept coming and went up by five just over a minute later as Masson swatted in a rebound off an Ashton Beriana attempt.
Hearst eventually solved Rock goalkeeper Frédéric Cousineau just over four minutes into the third when Hugo Allard was fed a pass from Julien Trudel, then went in and cut to his left before lifting in a close-range backhand.
That proved to be the night’s final marker as Timmins went on to wrap up the series.
NOJHL semifinal
No. 3 Hearst Lumberjacks vs. No. 4 Timmins Rock
Best-of-seven series
Game 1: Rock 7, Lumberjacks 4
Game 2: Rock 5, Lumberjacks 2
Game 3: Rock 5, Lumberjacks 3
Game 4: Rock 5, Lumberjacks 1
Timmins wins best-of-seven series 4-0
Game Photos:
Thomas Perry – The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
