The Rayside-Balfour Canadians and Blind River Beavers are going to game seven, after Yianni Liarakos deflected a point shot from Max Khull at 5:32 of the first overtime period, lifting the visiting Beavers to a 4-3 win in Chelmsford Sunday night, and deadlocking the series at three games apiece.
Battling to avoid elimination, the Blind River crew got the early jump on the Canadians, striking less than two minutes in on a goal from captain Anthony Pullicino. But Rayside settled in for the remainder of the frame, securing a 2-1 lead on a pair of goals from Brett Whiteside, the second one with his team a man up.
The hometown crowd might have started to look forward to round two action when Tristan Simm doubled the Rayside advantage, once again capitalizing on the power play, at 1:35 of the second.
The Beavers, however, were not ready to call it a season quite yet. Liarakos got one back for Blind River, burying a shot from the slot with seven seconds to go on a five on three advantage, and Dylan McMahon knotted matters at three, roofing a well-placed shot over the shoulder of Rayside netminder Owen Johansson.
The third period remained scoreless, as both goaltenders were up to the task, with Myles Hektor finishing the contest with 42 saves, while Johansson turned aside 34 shots of his own.
"When we got up 3-1, I thought we took our foot off the pedal a little bit," said Canadians' head coach Dave Clancy.
"Our power play, at that point, kind of stumbled, and they took it to us. We gave up too many pucks at the blueline and refused to get pucks in deep."
Still, Clancy remained upbeat at his team's chances to prevail as he addressed his troops after the game.
"The message was that we fell behind 2-0 in this series and came back and won three games," he said.
"They had to win this game and they accomplished that. We have to stay our course. We have a game plan and we're happy to be where we are. I was expecting this to be a long series."
The deciding match in this battle will go Tuesday night in Blind River, with the winner moving on to face the surprising Soo Eagles. After finishing in fourth place in the NOJHL West Division, coach Jim Capy and company swept aside the first place Soo Thunderbirds in four straight games (4-3, 4-3, 3-2, 4-2).
