WIKWEMIKONG, Ont. – Trailing by three goals with less than three minutes remaining in regulation, the Iroquois Falls Storm struck three times to tie it and force overtime, then went on to win it in the extra session in stunning the Espanola Paper Kings 7-6 in a chippy Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League neutral site contest Saturday, held at Wikwemikong Recreation Centre.
Espanola needed less than a minute to get on the board as they broke out of the own zone with speed, which led to Jack Anderson going in on Iroquois Falls starter Maverick Fletcher, where he made a quick deke to his left and lifted in a backhand at the 59-second mark.
Striking shorthanded, Jack Jarvis drew the Storm level at 7:16 with his eighth marker of the season.
Special teams then saw Iroquois Falls take then lead when Jordan Mayo converted on a man advantage at 12:18 by pumping in a Landon Trethewey feed from between the circles.
Moving to the middle frame, Espanola tied it on a marker credited to Kaden Wicklander, in beating netminder Connor Hatfield.
Building on that, the Paper Kings banged in two more tallies deep into the session off the sticks of Carter Drigo and Aiden Pethick to go up 4-2 after 40 minutes.
In the third, Jason Galante and Wicklander converted for Espanola while Jaden Lyons and Andre Cho countered for Iroquois Falls to make it a 6-4 game.
Making it interesting late, the Storm’s John Adlys scored on a penalty shot with 1:26 remaining for his first NOJHL tally.
Not done there, Iroquois Falls converted in the final minute, while up a skater, to send it to OT on a tying tally by Ben Sherwin.
In extra time, Cho completed the impressive comeback victory 1:15 in.
With the win, the Storm improved to 10-16-1-1.
Getting a point in defeat, the Paper Kings dropped a seventh-straight match-up, in falling to 8-14-2-1 overall.
