COCHRANE, Ont. – The Kirkland Lake Gold Miners got a pair of goals from affiliate Karter Renouf to help them defeat the Cochrane Crunch 5-3 Tuesday evening in Game 3 of their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League East Division final at the Tim Horton Event Centre.
With the result, the visiting team has now won all three games in this best-of-seven series with the Gold Miners taking a 2-1 lead into Game 4 Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex in Kirkland Lake.
In Tuesday’s contest, the host Crunch began the night’s scoring 9:13 in on a Brendan Van Sweden effort.
Renouf’s first of the evening at 15:27 knotted the affair at 1-1 entering the second.
After Dustin Cordeiro extended a consecutive game goal streak to seven and put Cochrane back in front early in the middle session, Kirkland Lake opted to replace starter Joe Marcoullier in favour of Victor-Olivier Courchesne the rest of the way.
The move paid off with Renouf adding another at 14:14 and Brayden Stortz notching his seventh of the playoffs a minute and a half later as the guests took a 3-2 cushion into the final frame.
In the third Alexander Hester added another for Kirkland Lake early to make it 4-2 as the eventual game-winner came 76 seconds into the period.
Cochrane then put in Allan Menary in place of Brett Young after that, but the Gold Miners got to him with some insurance courtesy of Joel Fortin with 4:49 to go.
The Crunch got one final tally thanks to a Joey Mavrin power play marker at 18:36 to round out the scoring.
Courchesne stopped 22 of 23 in relief to register the win for Kirkland Lake while Marcoullier stopped 13 of 15.
Young was saddled with the loss handling 25 of 29 in defeat with Menary saving seven of eight in just under 19 minutes of work.
