COCHRANE, Ont. – Hunter Atchison’s second goal of the game with 12 seconds remaining in regulation helped the Cochrane Crunch salvage a 3-3 double overtime tie with the visiting Kirkland Lake Gold Miners in an exciting Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League match-up Thursday evening at the Tim Horton Event Centre.
Special teams allowed Cochrane to pick up the lone tally of the opening period as Atchison scored on the power play at 10:35.
Tyler Minolettti’s fifth of the season five minutes into the second stanza then put the Crunch up a pair.
Battling back, Kirkland Lake notched man advantage markers 3:11 apart from Brayden Stortz and Blake Anderson to level the affair at 2-2 through 40 minutes.
In the third, the Gold Miners took the lead as Stortz tallied for a second time 2:57 into the session to make it a 3-2 game.
Then with time running out and Crunch goaltender Brett Young on the bench in favour of an extra attacker, Atchison buried the equalizer to send the game to OT.
After a scoreless initial five-minute OT, the two teams’ traded glorious opportunities in the second extra session.
Kirkland Lake’s Tyler Mazzocato stoned Cochrane’s Dustin Cordeiro on the breakaway early in the second OT while Young came up huge on Blake Anderson from in close a couple minutes later.
In the end the two sides settled for just the second tie in league play this season.
Brandon Wolfe picked up two assists for the visitors with Jon Marzec doing likewise for the home team.
The Crunch held the edge in shots on the night 46-42 with both netminders doing their part to aid their clubs in picking up one point apiece.
In the standings, Cochrane is now 13-3-1-1 and Kirkland Lake is 10-4-1-1.
