The Greater Sudbury Cubs are on the verge of claiming the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League title after taking an overtime win April 22 and going up 3-1 in their best-of-seven championship series against the Powassan Voodoos.
The Cubs are now one game away from claiming the NOJHL crown, which they could do this Thursday, when the Voodoos come to town for Game 5, which will be played at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex starting at 7:05 p.m. The game can be watched on FLOHockey.tv.
“Powassan generated a number of quality chances to commence play, but a couple of big saves by Noah Metivier in the Greater Sudbury net kept it scoreless through the opening minutes in the match-up,” the league said in a release.
And so it was Sudbury that drew first blood after Samuel Assinewai knocked down a clearing attempt and lasered a pass over to Hudson Chitaroni, who buried his 11th goal of the post-season at 12:36.
Chitaroni leads the NOJHL in post-season scoring incidentally.
“Supplying an equalizer, moments into a double minor, the Voodoos drew level when Alex Little and Chase Thompson provided the passing that allowed Mathieu MacMillan to whip a shot past Metivier.”
That goal broke an impressive streak that saw the Cubs not being scored on for a total of 115 minutes and 34 seconds.
On the power play, Powassan took the lead at 17:57 of the first during a five-on-three. Cameron Lemcke fired a long, low shot that found its way through the bodies in front of the net and slid into the bottom-left corner to make it 2-1 for the Voodoos.
“Drawing even with a man advantage effort of their own, midway through the second stanza, the Cubs’ Nolan Newton blasted a one-timer from the left circle off an Ethan Larmand cross-ice feed that managed to get through goalkeeper Daniel Dirracolo.”
The second period would remain overwise scoreless.
Powassan would make it 3-2 at 13:38 of the third period. Chase Thompson sent a backhand from in deep to an open MacMillan, who lifted in his second of the night.
Sudbury would come right back though, tying it up quickly after Newton stuffed in a loose puck that rang off the post from a Noah Kohan shot.
Regular time ended with things knotted 3-3. The overtime period ended pretty quickly, too. Chitaroni won a draw that sent the puck to Assinewai, who fired a shot from the blueline that Chitaroni appeared to tip in, ending the game 4-3.
Game 5 goes April 25 at Countryside Sports Complex in the South End. Puck drop is 7:05 p.m.
