Facing a must-win situation to keep their season alive, the Powassan Voodoos did just that as they defeated the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners 6-1 Saturday in Game 5 of their Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League East Division semifinal at the Powassan Sportsplex.
The result now forces a Game 6 in the best-of-seven series Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. at the Joe Mavrinac Community Complex in Kirkland Lake with the Gold Miners up 3-2 in the in the division semifinal.
“It doesn’t matter if you win 2-1 or 1-0, you win the game and that’s all we wanted to do when we came into today’s game,” stated Voodoos Head Coach Scott Wray.
“We got outplayed in the first period and we stuck to it, Garrett was on his game again today, he’s been phenomenal all series. It’s a huge win for us, we need to stay alive obviously and we didn’t want the summer to start tomorrow.”
Powassan used the man advantage to open the scoring getting the night’s opening tally on the power play at 13:52 of the first period as Michael Silveri scored on assists by Tyler Peters and Jake Staples.
The Voodoos then got an all-important second goal just as the stanza was about to expire as Peters was credited with his third marker of the series at 19:58, in what turned out to be the game-winner.
Nathaniel McLeod added to the home side’s cushion with the lone tally of the middle session as he collected his initial postseason goal at 4:23.
Kirkland Lake cut the deficit to 3-1 just past the eight-minute mark of the third thanks to Marc-Antoine Arseneau.
Powassan’s Daniel Golba came right back a minute and a half later while Francois Lemelin converted during a Voodoos power play after that to put them up by four at 11:37.
Jesse Anderson then wrapped up the scoring 26 seconds later to finish off the one-sided decision.
After going 2 for 19 on the power play through four games, the Voodoos went 3 for 3 with the extra man on this night.
Staples helped out with two assists for the winners.
Garrett Forrest was called up on to make 40 saves in picking up the victory for Powassan.
Joe Marcoullier started for the Gold Miners and suffered the loss allowing five against on 28 attempts.
Victor-Olivier Courchesne meanwhile stopped seven of eight in 8:23 of third period relief.
Game six takes place in Kirkland Lake with a 7:30 puck drop, and if a Game seven is necessary it will be set for Wednesday night in Powassan.
