The Greater Sudbury Cubs saw their five-game win streak broken on Sunday after falling 2-1 to the Timmins Rock in overtime at McIntyre Arena.
The surging Rock, currently in third place in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, have 11 straight wins under the belt after Sunday’s victory.
“It was a match-up that justified two of the hottest teams in the NOJHL, as they entered the day with a combined record of 19-1-0-0 in their past 20 games while sitting one-two in fewest goals-against allowed in the league to date,” the game report states.
The Rock opened the scoring at 11:22 of the first period on the power play when Kaeden McArthur took a cross-ice pass from Brant Romaniuk and fired in his 15th goal of the season in beating Cubs’ netminder Matthew Vahramian.
“Sporting the NOJHL’s best power play percentage, Greater Sudbury drew even moments into one as Nolan Newton lifted in a rebound past Timmins’ Frédéric Cousineau off a Briir Long wrist shot from the top of the left circle,” the report reads.
The goal extends Newton’s point streak to six games. The marker also means the star forward has scored seven times in seven consecutive periods of play.
The second and third periods remained scoreless as the two NOJHL powerhouse teams attacked and parried and countered each other for 40 minutes, with neither finding an advantage. The game went to overtime.
“Skating three aside in OT, the Rock prevailed when McArthur broke up a play in his own zone, then led a two-on-one up ice with Romaniuk, with the latter being left with a game-winning tap-in off a give-and-go to end it.”
Timmins improved to 17-5-0-1 as they extended their victory streak and Greater Sudbury picked up a point in the narrow setback as their record went to 18-6-1-1 overall.
The Cub remain first overall in the league with 38 points, while the Rock are in third with 35.