TIMMINS, Ont. – The Timmins Rock trio of Grant McClellan, Alexandre Brisson and newly acquired Connor Hoffmann combined for nine points to help their squad pull out a 7-5 victory over the Cochrane Crunch Tuesday evening in a high-scoring Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League affair at McIntyre Arena.
Timmins started strong in the contest grabbing a 2-0 first period lead when Donny Schultz collected his initial league effort during a man advantage opportunity just past the 12-minute mark of the frame while Brisson also connected on the power play at couple of shifts later.
Cochrane countered before the session was complete though as Kyle Podwika and Austin Stauffer struck in the latter stages of the stanza to knot the affair at 2-2.
The Rock came out rolling in the second by notching three markers before the period was seven minutes as Hoffmann, James Redmond, with his first, and Stewart Parnell all found the back of the net and chased Crunch starter Taylor Unruh in the process in favour of Josh Barrett the rest of the way.
Making the goaltending change appeared to spark the visitors as they came back with goals from Kyle Herbster and Stauffer to pull within one with four and a half minutes left in the second.
However, Hoffmann’s second marker in his Timmins debut, coming at 18:41, proved to be the eventual game-winner.
Again Cochrane moved closer thanks to Nicolas Flanders, who came through for the Crunch via the power play, in his return to the line-up 6:19 into the third.
Parnell would answer that for the Rock 75 seconds later to give the home side some insurance in what turned out to be the final goal of the night as he and Hoffman both scored twice and assisted on one other in the win.
McClellan meanwhile doled out three helpers in the Timmins triumph.
Stauffer had a three-point night in defeat for Cochrane.
Eric Jackson went the distance in net for the Rock making 27 saves to pick up the win.
Unruh allowed five against on 19 attempts while Barrett suffered the loss in relief handling 11 of the 14 shots fired his way in relief.
The 12 combined goals scored in the contest marks the most notched in league play so far this season.