Timmins Rock forward Kai Clayton drills a shot through the five-hole past Kirkland Lake Gold Miners goalie Mason Janicki as teammate Jakob Drobny raises his stick in celebration during the second period of Sunday afternoon’s NOJHL contest at the McIntyre Arena. Clayton’s second goal of the season tied things up and 3-3 in a game the Rock would go on to win 5-4. THOMAS PERRY/THE DAILY PRESS jpg, TD, apsmc
The Kirkland Lake Gold Miners struggles against the Timmins Rock continued at the McIntyre Arena Sunday afternoon, as they dropped their 36th-straight contest to their NOJHL rivals in the past five seasons.
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
Overall, it was the 11th-straight loss for the Gold Miners (2-24-0-2) who find themselves dead last in the 12-team NOJHL standings and the third in three days in the wake of a pair of home-ice setbacks earlier on the weekend — 8-5 at the hands of the Hearst Lumberjacks Saturday night and 9-1 against the league-leading Greater Sudbury Cubs Friday night.
Steven Polyblank, who has been behind the bench for seven of those 11 contests, following the team’s coaching change, was pleased with the compete level he saw from his Gold Miners Sunday afternoon.
“We really battled hard, especially after playing three games in two-and-a-half days against the first-, second- and third-place teams in the league,” he said.
“I was really proud (of our team). We had a chance (to win) tonight and I believe in my heart we are way better than a 2-24-0-2 hockey team.
“It was disappointing because we need a win bad for our confidence.”
The Gold Miners have made a number of changes to their roster since Polyblank took over, especially on the defensive side of the puck and in net, but the coach feels they are starting to come together, as a unit.
“I have only been here for seven games and you want to try to get lines together, to gel a little bit,” he said. “If you play better as a unit and things click, the kids will love coming to the rink. Right now, it is tough for them. We need a win bad.”
Polyblank hopes once the Gold Miners get a win under their belt things will snowball from there.
“You hope so, because it will get the pressure off them,” he said. “Right now, they have monkey on their backs.”
On the other side of the rink, the Rock are hoping Sunday’s victory will be the start of another winning streak after their most recent one was snapped at nine games with Friday night’s 8-5 setback against the Lumberjacks in Hearst.
Clark Scaddan got the Rock off to a solid start Sunday afternoon when he scored the first of his two goals in the game and seventh of the season 6:06 into the opening period.
But the Gold Miners battled back to tie things up less than four minutes later, when Nicolas Saucier netted a power-play marker, his third goal of the campaign.
Trent Nobes followed with the first of his two goals on the afternoon and 11th of the season, a power-play marker, to give the Gold Miners a 2-1 advantage.
Scaddan’s second goal of the game and eighth of the season deadlocked the contest before the first intermission.
Nobes second power-play marker, his 12th tally of the campaign then gave the Gold Miners a 3-2 lead 13:02 into the middle frame.
Former Gold Miners forward Kai Clayton tied things up for his new team a minute and a half later when he netted his second goal of the season.
It appeared the Gold Miners had retaken the lead with 1:25 remaining in the second period and 52 seconds remaining in a penalty to Rock forward Kaeden McArthur but after a conference near the penalty box the officials ruled there was no goal on the play.
Ryan Armitage then gave the Rock a 4-3 lead 2:43 into the third period when he scored his ninth goal of the season.
Jack Kelly then added a little insurance when he deposited his 14th goal of the season into an empty Kirkland Lake net with goalie Mason Janicki on the bench in favour of an extra attacker and 56 seconds remaining in regulation.
The Rock would need to cash in that insurance 47 seconds later, however, as Jordan Fitger scored his ninth marker of the season to pull the Gold Miners back to within a goal and turning Kelly’s empty netter into the game-winner.
Sunday afternoon’s victory was even sweeter for Clayton since it came against his former squad.
“I play every game the same way, but it definitely felt nice to beat them and to score a goal,” he said.
“It definitely felt good. Army (Armitage) gave me the puck on the half wall and I tried to get up some speed, ended up giving it to Hank (Henry McLellan) and he made a nice play getting it to the net. I went hard to the net and the puck found my stick and I put it in the back of the net.”
Neither of the Gold Miners current goalies were with the squad when Clayton was with the team so neither he nor Janicki had any advantage of familiarity.
“I just saw five-hole and put the shot there,” Clayton said.
The coaching staff put together the line of Clayton, McLellan and Armitage during the loss to the Lumberjacks Friday night.
“Me and Hank have played together a little bit, on and off, and today, with Army, we clicked well out there,” Clayton said.
“It kind of started the last game, against Hearst, and then carried over to today.”
The forward acknowledged it was huge for the Rock to start a new winning streak after struggling against the Lumberjacks in Hearst.
“They have a good team, but we know we can beat them (Lumberjacks), so it was good we were able to bounce back today,” Clayton said.
“Hopefully, it will be the start of a new winning streak.”
With coach and general manager Brandon Perry in Alberta, along with goalie Dryden Riley, as part of Canada East, assistant coach Marc Bisson drew the short straw and got to speak to the media following Sunday afternoon’s victory.
“We always have to work on our D Zone coverage, clearing the view for our goalie so he can see to stop the puck and we could always use a few more blocked shots,” he said, when asked what the Rock did well and what they could have done better.
“That has been the message most of the week. We are not a team that blocks enough shots. We get into fake shooting lanes and it really doesn’t help out goaltending. It just results in a screen shot and that’s what happened on the last (Gold Miners goal), in my opinion.”
A number of Rock players made positive impressions on the assistant coach.
“Scaddan was good today,” Bisson said. “Army has been good and I liked Clayton’s game a lot, as well. He played a really good game and scored a big goal for us. I thought that line of McLellan, Armitage and Clayton was probably our best line tonight. We put those three guys together in Hearst on Friday and felt good about how they played in the last two periods.
“(Blue-liner Braedyn) Cyr has been playing some good hockey and I was really happy with the job (affiliate player Jakob) Drobny did coming up from the (GNU18L’s Timmins) Majors. He logged a lot of minutes with them, playing Friday night and Saturday night, with them, and we reached out this morning. I thought he played a really good game for us. On Armitage’s goal, he had a good shot from the point. He got involved and it’s great for a young guy to come up and get some solid Junior ‘A’ minutes.”
Even though the Rock have eight blue-liners on their roster, the team has been short on the back end due to injuries and a suspension.
“(Ethan) Albert has got a lower-body injury and Matthew Kim, whom we just acquired from La Ronge Wolves, of the SJHL, is also fighting a lower-body injury,” Bisson said. “Hopefully, they will be good by next weekend after a week of practice. Elijah Pool served game three of his six-game suspension.
Rock goalie Graham Gee stopped 18 of the 22 shots he faced to earn his seventh win of the season.
Janicki, who turned aside 35 of the 39 shots the Rock directed his way, was tagged with the loss.
NOJHL NOTES — The Daily Press three stars of Sunday’s game were Scaddan, Armitage and Nobes … The Rock went 0-5 on the power play Sunday, while the Gold Miners were 3-6 with the man advantage … Official attendance at the McIntyre Arena Sunday was 758 … Sunday’s other action saw the Beavers top the Soo Thunder Birds 5-3 in Blind River … The Rock will head out on a three-game road trip with stops in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich, on Friday, Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on Saturday and Blind River on Sunday. The next home game will be on Friday, Dec. 20, when they host the Hearst Lumberjacks at the McIntyre Arena, at 7 p.m.
