File Photo: Turnbull’s Northern Photography
SUDBURY, Ont. – A Charlie Crump long-range effort, deep in regulation, that was deflected in by Landon Trethewey turned out to be the decider as the Iroquois Falls Storm withstood a valiant comeback attempt by the Elliot Lake Vikings Wednesday to prevail with a frenzied 4-3 triumph in a highly entertaining Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League Showcase match-up at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
Iroquois Falls would light the lamp first when Cartier Jamieson put a pass on the tape of Remi Gendron in the left circle where he wired a shot by Elliot Lake netminder Ryder Lally at 13:19 of the opening frame.
Special teams saw the Storm supply two more markers in the middle stanza to put them up by three after 40 minutes.
Striking on the power play, Jack Jarvis made it 2-0 as he hammered a one-timer in the slot from a Landon Trethewey feed that flew into the back of the net.
After a flurry of Vikings’ chances, that were denied in spectacular fashion by Iroquois Falls goaltender Matis Bureau-Morel, a blast off the end boards sailed out of the zone and saw Alexandre St. Pierre win a race to the puck with Lally, which allowed him to deposit it into the open net for a shorthanded goal.
Battling back in the third, Elliot Lake clicked twice in the opening five minutes to pull within one.
Tanner Gould got them on the board at 1:55 as he finished off the hard work of Dylan Hendrick, who pressured a turnover and worked it in front, where it was swatted home.
A couple of shifts later, the Vikings got to a draw in the Storm zone and saw Anthony Bertrand lay a backhand into a prime scoring area where a waiting Ivan Kedrov whipped it in.
Maintaining their momentum, Elliot Lake drew level with 2:45 to go as they chased down a dump-in, which led to Gould sliding a backhand over to Mason Windsor in close where he put in the equalizer.
However, Iroquois Falls countered to spoil the Vikings’ comeback bid when defenceman Crump sailed a shot through a maze from the left point that Trethewey managed to get a piece of and elude a blocked-out Lally for the game-winner.
The Storm then tightened up defensively from there to collect the narrow result and skate away with the two points.