The Greater Sudbury Cubs are unbeaten in four games after securing a shootout win in Powassan on Saturday.
It took nine minutes for the first goal to be scored and it was Sudbury that drew first blood. On the power play, Marshall McCharles took a sharp cross-crease pass from Nolan Newton and fired it past Powassan Voodoos netminder Daniel Dirracolo.
The first would end with the Cubs up 1-0. There would be no more scoring in the hotly contested battle until near the end of the second period. The Voodoos’ Carson Ricci tied it up when he took a Ryan Patrick pass in the slot and ripped it past the blocker of Greater Sudbury’s Noah Metivier.
The Cubs would retake the lead before the second intermission, though. Team captain Oliver Smith knocked down an up-ice pass from Newton and darted in alone on a breakaway before neatly picking the bottom-left corner to put Sudbury up 2-1.
Powassan evened things up 36 seconds into the third when after a scramble behind the net, the puck popped loose in front and Cameron Lemcke hammered it by Metivier to notch things at 2-2.
Seven minutes later, however, McCharles banged in his second of the night from in close to make it 3-2.
Powassan made it 3-3 with just over six minutes remaining thanks to Darby McCarthy chipping in his very first Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League marker, sending the game to overtime.
During the extra minutes, Metivier thwarting Voodoos’ captain Alex Little on a penalty shot, while Dirracolo did his part for Powassan by handling a pair of point-blank Cubs’ chances.
In the shootout, Tucker Shields of Powassan and Greater Sudbury’s Hudson Chitaroni traded tallies before Newton nailed down the road win with a couple of quick head fakes that confused Dirracolo before firing the puck into the right hand corner to make it 4-3 for Greater Sudbury.
The outcome sees the Cubs improve to 4-0 on the season while the Voodoos dipped to 2-0-0-1.
The Cubs are back in action at home on Sept. 21 against the French River Rapids.
