COCHRANE – Trailing by a goal with less than five minutes to play, the Abitibi Eskimos rallied for three unanswered goals to pull out a 4-2 win over the Cochrane Crunch in Game 3 of their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League East Division semifinal Monday at the Tim Horton Event Centre.
With the result, the Eskimos now trail the best-of-seven affair 2-1 heading into Game 4, which goes Wednesday at Jus Jordan Arena in Iroquois Falls at 7:30 p.m.
After a scoreless opening 20 minutes, it would be the hometown Crunch that got on the board first midway through the second as Stavros Soilis picked up his first of the playoffs with assists going to Dylan Sakatch and Max Glashauser.
Abitibi would draw level in the latter stages of the second during a man advantage opportunity as Brady Clouthier finished off a nice three-way passing play to knot the score at 1-1 at the 18-minute mark of the stanza.
In the third Cochrane retook the lead 8:34 as Henry Berger finished off a feed from Dustin Cordeiro to make it 2-1.
Abitibi captain Kevin Walker then tied it with 4:33 remaining in regulation before Brenden Locke notched the eventual game-winner a minute and a half later.
Having a late power play, the Crunch pulled goaltender Brett Young in favour of an extra attacker to give them two extra skaters, but Locke added a shorthanded empty net effort with 14 seconds to go to round out the scoring.
Brennan Roy had two assists to help out the Eskimos offensively.
Chet Tooker was solid in making 46 saves to register the triumph in net for Abitibi. He also picked up an assist on Locke’s empty netter.
Young saw 36 shots fired his way in defeat.
