Timmins Rock blue-liner Ben Climenhaga reaches out to knock the puck past Soo Thunderbirds D-man Jaden van de Ven during the first period of Friday night’s NOJHL contest at the McIntyre Arena. The Rock held on to edge the Thunderbirds 4-3, handing the Soo its first loss of the young season. Photo by THOMAS PERRY /The Daily Press
The Timmins Rock will host the French River Rapids at the McIntyre Arena, on Sunday, at 1 p.m.
Thomas Perry
The Daily Press/Postmedia Network
The Timmins Rock hung on to hand the Soo Thunderbirds their first loss of the season at the McIntyre Arena, Friday night.
It was the home opener for the Rock, who improved to 3-0-0-1 on the young season, and they had to overcome a sluggish start to earn the 4-3 victory.
Some late undisciplined play almost cost the Rock the game and strangely turned Evan Katic’s length-of-the-ice empty net goal into the game-winning marker.
Edan Etheridge’s third goal of the season put the Rock in front 3-2 just over five minutes into the third period.
Ten minutes later, Etheridge took a boarding penalty in front of the Rock bench, but Timmins was able to kill off that infraction.
The Thunderbirds pulled goalie Cameron Boville in favour of an extra attacker, but the move backfired when Katic deposited his fourth goal of the season into the empty Soo net.
Rock fans applauded the empty netter that made it a 4-2 hockey game, thinking things were in the bag.
That’s when Ashton Beriana, one of the Rock’s top penalty killers, was sent off for slashing with one minute remaining in regulation.
Thunderbirds coach Cole Jarrett opted to once again Boville in favour of an extra attacker, setting up a two-man advantage for the visitors.
Jackson Mead beat Rock goalie Ayden Mullen with 43 seconds remaining on the clock to cut the Timmins lead to 4-3.
Hoping lightning would strike twice, Jarrett lifted Boville for a third time, but while the Thunderbirds were able to generate a couple of solid chances, Mullen stood tall to keep them from doing further damage.
It had looked like the first period of Friday night’s contest would end in a scoreless tie, but Owen Murphy drilled a shot through a screen that beat Mullen for the game’s first goal with 4.2 seconds remaining in the frame.
It was his first tally of the campaign.
The Rock were able to get back on even terms just over a minute into the second period when blue-liner Ben Climenhaga netted a power-play marker, his first goal of the season.
Climenhaga, better known for his defensive prowess, did not hesitate when he got the opportunity to put the Rock on the scoreboard.
“We had been working on the power play all week,” he said. “It’s a three D-man power play, so it’s not what you would expect.
“I love playing with Drobs (fellow blue-liner Jakob Drobny) as a D-partner and we just kind of communicated through the play and as we criss-crossed I looked up and saw the goalie was leaning the other way.
“That’s when the puck came to me and I just gripped it and ripped it. The shot beat him low on his glove side.”
It wasn’t just his unexpected offensive outburst that earned Climenhaga the hard hat as the Rock’s player of the game, however.
“We are the Timmins Rock and we like to play a hard-nosed style of hockey,” he said.
“It was kind of like beating them down and breaking them down throughout the whole game, never giving them an inch, making them feel like they had nothing going for them.”
As part of the Rock’s new leadership group, Climenhaga proudly wears an A on his chest this season and just four games into the campaign he is already sporting an impressive playoff beard.
“I have actually had a couple of comments on that and as much as I am loving playoff beard, it is probably going to have to go, it is getting a little out of hand,” he said, noting he won’t be joining former NHL star Joe Thornton or current NHLer Brent Burns as the poster child for playoff beards.
“I don’t think I could grow it that long, even if I wanted to,” Climenhaga said.
Landon Hill’s third goal of the season, just over two minutes later, put the Thunderbirds back in front 2-1.
Captain Maxx Hamelin netted his fourth goal of the season, an unassisted marker, to deadlock the score once again before the second intermission.
That set the stage for the third period’s excitement.
While Climenhaga was proud of the fact the Rock opened the regular season with a pair of wins and a shootout loss on the road, he noted Friday night’s victory was extra special for the boys.
“There is nothing better than playing at The Mac,” he said. “Our fans are just awesome and everything here is just awesome. The energy just makes you want to be out there and give everything you have got.
“Getting that first (home ice) Dub (win) against a good team like the Soo, is the best feeling.”
Rock coach and general manager Sheldon Reasbeck liked the final score of Friday night’s contest, but acknowledged there were some bumps along the way.
“We had a little bit of jitters, with it being our home opener and playing in front of a big crowd,” he said.
“So, the first period was a little bit of a learning process, but we nipped things in the bud come the second period.”
The coach did not hesitate to employ his three D-man power play unit when the Rock finally got a man-advantage opportunity.
“It was a no-brainer putting that unit on, as they had been pretty solid during the five-on-three in practice and then Climenhaga scored that goal,” Reasbeck said. “From there, we knew we could win, even if we had to come from behind again, which we did.”
A number of Rock players caught the coach’s eye, including the one who ended up with what proved to be the game-winning marker.
“He (Katic) is just solid and he probably played close to 30 minutes tonight,” Reasbeck said. “He is just a workhorse and obviously we have chatted about his board play before, his ability to get out of tight areas and then create.
“It’s impressive to watch, even his determination, he was gassed in the third period but he was competing to the best of his ability.”
Like many of the fans in attendance, Reasbeck was not happy with the lack of discipline he saw from his Rock players in the third period.
“It’s not the guy you would think would be getting the penalty at that time,” he said, referring to Beriana’s trip to the sin bin.
“I agree, I agree, in terms of those two boys we road them pretty hard tonight, so when your legs go, your mind goes and it was at the end of shifts.
“These are things we will work on moving forward. We are trying the build a championship team and we have to get those kind of things out of our game.”
Mullen may have given up three goals for the first time this season, but he was still a big part of Friday night’s victory.
“The last two goals, he had a lot of traffic in front of him and in the first period, Mully save out butt,” Reasbeck said, noting the one goal the beat the Rock goalie in the opening frame was a shot through a screen.
“We weren’t defending hard enough and we were giving up tons of Grade A scoring opportunities, but he just kept us in there. That was our message between periods, ‘Hey, this guy is saving your butts. Now, go to work and do the things we need to do in our D-zone before playing offence.”
There were a couple of other Rock players who made positive impressions, as well.
“Rock Oosterveld had a great game and the Thomas Jaakkola-(Nolan) McVeigh D pairing was really stellar tonight,” Reasbeck said. “They were playing with confidence and making simple plays, which is exactly the way we want to play. We want to play fast, move the puck north as fast as possible.”
Mullen stopped 29 of the 32 shots he faced to earn his third win of the season in three starts for the Rock.
Boville, who turned aside 26 of the 29 shots the Rock directed his way, was tagged with the loss for the Thunderbirds.
NOJHL NOTES — The Daily Press three stars of the game were Katic, Climenhaga and Murphy … The Rock went 1-4 on the power play, while the Thunderbirds were 1-6 with the man advantage … Official attendance at the McIntyre Arena was 908 … Friday’s other action saw the Storm top the French River Rapids 5-2 in Iroquois Falls, the Vikings edge the Espanola Paper Kings 4-3 in Elliot Lake and the Eagles triple the Blind River Beavers 6-2 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. … The Rock will host the Rapids at the McIntyre Arena, on Sunday, at 1 p.m.
