Timmins Rock forward Kaeden McArthur, shown here celebrating a goal earlier this season at the McIntyre Arena, scored a pair of goals — including the game-winner — to help lead the Timmins Rock to a 4-3 victory over the French River Rapids at the Noelville Arena, Saturday night. It was the ninth-straight victory for the Rock who will host the Espanola Paper Kings are the McIntyre Arena, on Tuesday, at 7 p.m. Photo by FILE /The Daily Press
The Timmins Rock will return to action on Tuesday, when they host the Espanola Paper Kings at the McIntyre Arena, at 7 p.m.
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
FRENCH RIVER — The Timmins Rock built up a four-goal lead and then hung on to edge the Rapids 4-3 at the Noelville Arena, Saturday night.
It was the conclusion of a two-game weekend road trip that saw the Rock extend its current winning streak to nine games after topping the Voodoos 3-1 in a penalty-filled contest Friday night.
With four points under their belt, the Rock (15-5-0-1) find themselves in fifth place in the NOJHL standings, two points behind the Espanola Paper Kings (16-8-0-1) and three points up on the Voodoos (13-7-0-2), and they have four games in hand on the former and one on the latter.
The Rock will now head home to host the Paper Kings — the last team that they lost to, 4-3 in Espanola on Oct. 18, before embarking on their current winning streak.
Early on Saturday night, it looked like the Rock were going to roll over the Rapids, a team they had beaten 8-2 at the McIntyre Arena back on Nov. 16.
They outshot the Rapids 24-12 during the opening period and carried a 3-0 advantage into the first intermission.
Kaeden McArthur, with the first of his two goals on the night and 13th of the season, got things rolling for the Rock.
Kimani Eccleston then added a pair of goals, his fourth and fifth of the season, in the span of 1:19, to seemingly put the Rock in command heading into the break.
The Rapids pulled starting goalie Matis Bureau Morel following the first of Eccleston’s two tallies, with Keiran Caughran coming on in relief.
McArthur then added a power-play marker, his second goal of the game and 14th of the season, to make it a 4-0 hockey game.
As it turned out, that goal would stand up to be the game-winner, thanks to a Rapids’ rally that came up just short.
Power-play markers from Michael Morascyzk, his ninth goal of the campaign, and Jeremy Clark, his fifth tally of the season, allowed the Rapids to cut their deficit in half before the second intermission.
And Armando Rojo Bolton scored his seventh goal of the season with just over five minutes remaining in regulation to make it a one-goal hockey game.
But the Rock would not yield a fourth marker that would have sent the game to overtime.
While Rock coach and general manager Brandon Perry was happy to see his squad pick up four of a possible four points on the weekend, he felt his team’s level of play left much to be desired.
“We scored early, which obviously was a good thing, but we just didn’t play good, quality hockey the last two games, which is fine, it happens,” he said. “We found a way to get four points, which is really big, but I just didn’t like our game the last two games.”
On the bright side, the Rock managed to significantly reduce the amount of time they spent in the penalty box Saturday night.
“That (standing out of the penalty box and limiting the other team’s chances on the power play) is the plan every game,” Perry said. “You have got to play disciplined hockey and we played disciplined hockey tonight, which helps, obviously, but we just weren’t good on the PK (penalty kill). We had been good on the PK the last however many games, but they were two for three on the power play.”
Indeed, the Rock have the fourth best penalty kill (83.8 percent) in the NOJHL, even after Saturday night’s struggles.
The coach offered faint praise for one of the game’s three stars, McArthur, whose two goals included the game-winner.
“Yep, K-Mac scored today, that’s all I want to say about that (subject),” Perry said.
His assessment of the play of Eccleston, who was named the game’s first star, was a little more positive.
“He was great, he was really good tonight,” Perry said. “He is big and strong and he got inside the dots, got to the net, drove the blue paint. He could have had four goals. He had a breakaway late in the game, made a nice move on the goalie, just couldn’t get it up. He had another partial breakaway, drove wide on the D, got to the net but just couldn’t get the puck over the (goalie’s) glove. He was one of the lone bright spots, I would say.”
Zach Secord, one of the Rock’s veteran blue-liners who has been logging more minutes than normal on the back end, also drew a little extra praise from his coach.
“He had a great game on the back end,” Perry said. “Obviously, with Lobo (William Lobanov) leaving for Blind River and the amount of penalties we took Friday night, our D have been gassed but I though Secord was really good tonight.
“I thought Ryan Armitage had a really good game, as well. He could have had three goals. He was all over the ice tonight.”
Perry summed things up as best he could, following Saturday night’s victory.
“I would say we lacked effort away from the puck,” he said. “That’s how I would categorize this game. We play hard when we had the puck, but we didn’t play hard when we didn’t have it.”
Rock goalie Ayden Mullen, who stopped 40 of the 43 shots he faced, picked up his seventh win of the season.
Bureau Morel, who turned aside 18 of the 20 shots the Rock directed his way in his 16:11 of work, was tagged with the loss. Caughran blocked 40 of the 42 shots he faced in his 43:49 of relief.
ROCK 3 VOODOOS 1
The Rock survived a penalty-filled contest at the Powassan Sportsplex Friday night to capture a 3-1 victory.
Despite taking four of the opening period’s five minor penalties, the Rock emerged from the frame with a 1-0 lead.
Brant Romaniuk’s team-leading 20th goal of the season staked them to that advantage heading into the first intermission.
Penalty woes once again plagued the Rock in the middle frame, as they took four of the frame’s six minors and lost blue-liner Matthew Kim, who drew a game misconduct to go along with his checking-from-behind infraction.
Despite that fact, the Rock managed to push their lead to 3-0 — thanks to some stellar penalty killing and Lucas Lowe’s fifth goal of the season and Ashton Beriana’s initial NOJHL marker.
An altercation between Rock forward Diego Da Silva and Voodoos forward Heath Bradley early in the third period resulted in both players being ejected for the game. In addition to getting a five-minute major penalty for fighting and a game misconduct, Da Silva received a match penalty for attempt to injure or deliberate injure an opponent. That resulted in a five-game suspension for the first year Rock forward. Bradley’s five-minute fighting major and game misconduct was accompanies by a minor penalty for instigating.
With 4:14 remaining in the third period five members of the Rock — Thomas Beard, Braedyn Cyr, Lowe, McArthur and Romaniuk — and four members of the Voodoos — Braeden Begley, Parker Bonsignore, Reid de Bokx and Raphael Landry — were handed 10-minute misconducts.
It should be pointed out the Voodoos were killing a penalty at the time and only had four skaters on the ice, compared to the five the Rock skaters, which accounts for the visitors getting the extra misconduct.
The Voodoos finally broke through, spoiling the shutout bid of Rock goalie Frédéric Cousineau when Ryan Saginaw netted a power-play marker, his 14th goal of the season, with 1:04 remaining in regulation.
“We played okay Friday night, I would say, certainly not our best, not our worst,” Perry said. “There were just so many penalties. I have never seen anything like it. It just messes with your bench. If you have guys on your team who don’t kill penalties and they don’t play power play, they sit for like 16 minutes straight. Then you expect them to go out there and be great.
“Our penalty kill was really good Friday night and Frédéric Cousineau was absolutely fantastic in net. He is the reason we won that game.”
The coach was happy to see Beriana score his first NOJHL goal as he continues to get up to speed following a lengthy injury layoff.
“He was really good, after a bit of a slow start Friday,” Perry said. “He finished really strong. (On his goal) there was a play on the wall that Maxfeld Shin made. There D stepped down on him, he reverse bumped him, the puck squirted out and Kats (Evan Katic) broke out on a two-on-one and made a beautiful pass and Ashton put it in the back of the net. It was a really nice goal.”
Lowe, who is really starting to find his scoring touch, also caught his coach’s eye Friday night.
“Pucks are starting to go in for him,” Perry said. “It was just a broken play on the power play and I think their goalie ended up putting it in himself but when you are playing hard and doing things right, you tend to get rewarded. I think that was the case on that goal.”
Romaniuk’s 20 goals in just 21 games is a pretty impressive accomplishment, as well.
“I don’t know how much more we can say about him,” Perry said. “It was just a beautiful goal. He played very, very good Friday night.
NOJHL NOTES — The three stars of Saturdays contest were Eccleston, McArthur and Rapids forward Quinn Habermehl (one assists). Friday night, Cousineau, Rock blue-liner Braedyn Cyr and McArthur were selected … The Rock went 1-4 on the power play Saturday night, while the Rapids were 2-3 with the man advantage. Friday night, the Rock went 1-5 on the power play, while the Voodoos were 1-11 with the man advantage … Official attendance at the Noelville Arena Saturday night was 99, while 175 fans attended Friday night’s game at the Powassan Sportsplex … Sunday’s action saw the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners double up the Storm 6-3 in Iroquois Falls and the Soo Thunderbirds fly past the Lumberjacks 8-5 in Hearst … The Rock will return to action on Tuesday, when they host the Espanola Paper Kings at the McIntyre Arena, at 7 p.m.
