TIMMINS, Ont. – The Cochrane Crunch got a pair of goals and an assist from Dustin Cordeiro to help lead them to a 6-4 triumph over the Timmins Rock Tuesday evening in Game 3 of their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League East Division semifinal at McIntyre Arena.
The Crunch now lead the best-of-seven series 3-0 and will have a chance to close things out in Game 4 Thursday at 7 p.m. back in Timmins while the Rock will look to stave-off elimination and force a Game 5 Saturday in Cochrane.
The Crunch connected quickly in a 10-second span to take the lead in the opening session as Cordeiro and Seamus Maguire struck in rapid succession to put the visitors in front to put an abrupt end the Rock starter Logan Ferrington’s night in favour of Matthew Nixon.
Timmins countered with one of their own 21 seconds after Maguire’s marker as Aaron Kerr notched his second of the playoffs at 10:09.
The Rock tied it at 2-2 at 1:14 of the second on a Tristan Salesse effort only to see Cordeiro supply his second of the night at 5:17.
Once again the home side rallied for an equalizing goal a half minute later when Ryan Theriault tied things once again.
The high-powered Cochrane offense continued to click as the NOJHL’s regular season goal leaders went back in front just past the seven-minute mark of the middle stanza when Jon Marzec struck on the power play.
The Crunch then took a 5-3 lead into the third after Marzec scored again, one-timing a shot from the slot midway through the frame.
In the final session, Timmins battled back to within one at 8:11 as Wayne Mathieu feathered a nice cross-crease pass to an open Bain Cunningham, who whipped the puck into the gaping side past Cochrane goaltender Brett Young.
The Rock then pulled Nixon in the final 90 seconds in an effort to notch the equalizer and force overtime, but despite a flurry around the Crunch net, Maguire would ice it for the Crunch with a lengthy empty netter at 19:29 to round out the night’s scoring.
Brett Young made 31 stops to record the win for Cochrane.
Nixon suffered the loss in relief allowing three against on 36 attempts.
