THUNDER BAY – For the first four minutes of overtime it looked like a forgone conclusion the Lakehead Thunderwolves would drop their second straight game.
But Cody Alcock had other ideas.
Less than a minute after killing off a double minor penalty, Alcock was sprung on a breakaway and made no mistake, scoring to give the Thunderwolves a 4-3 victory over the Laurentian Voyageurs in non-conference action at the Fort William Gardens on Friday night.
“We wouldn’t have been in that situation if we didn’t have that monster kill,” Alcock said. “The guys went out there, sacrificed their bodies and worked to get the puck out after four minutes I jumped on the ice and it was a massive play by Nathan Cull with the diving pass.”
The junior forward took advantage of the effort by Cull, who laid out in the neutral zone to push the puck ahead to his teammate, to beat Voyageurs netminder Alain Valiquette on the backhand with 35 seconds remaining in the first overtime period.
That put the icing on Lakehead’s best penalty kill of the game, stymying Laurentian for four minutes while David Quesnele sat in the penalty box after taking an unusual high-sticking call that was apparently missed during play and then assessed during a subsequent stoppage.
The winner finished off a night where three times Lakehead took a one-goal lead, only to turn around and relinquish the advantage by conceding a powerplay goal.
Lakehead head coach Bill McDonald chose to look at the positives after the game.
“I was just happy with the way we reacted. We’re a very young group and you can see the emotion we played with,” he said. “We did alright. We hung in there.”
Alcock bookended the scoring, breaking the ice in the first period for his first of two on the night after he tipped home a point shot from defenceman Jake Ringuette.
Laurentian responded before the end of the frame as Brent Pedersen netted a powerplay marker, sliding a weak shot through Thunderwolves netminder Jeff Bosch.
Lakehead appeared to retake the lead in the dying stages of the period as Carson Dubchak buried a rebound around the time the horn sounded but after deliberation the officials ruled it came after buzzer.
The lead was restored early in the second as sophomore Trevor Hynnes scored his first Lakehead goal, converting a two-on-one feed from Matt Alexander.
But once again the visitors quickly drew even with a powerplay tally, this time as Nicolas Dionne jumped on a rebound.
In the third Ringuette buried his first as a Thunderwolf as his point blast eluded Valiquette to put the home side back up.
That lead appeared to be holding up until Laurentian found the equalizer with less than three minutes remaining in regulation as Christopher Smith scored the Voyageurs’ third extra man goal of the contest, capitalizing on a Ringuette high-sticking double minor to extend the game.
Claw marks: Attendance was announced at 2,250…Laurentian went 3-5 on the powerplay while Lakehead was 0-4…Bosch stopped 32 shots in the winning effort…Wolves captain Luke Maw was a healthy scratch as McDonald chose to give more freshmen an opportunity to audition for playing time. He said Maw will play on Saturday…McDonald said rookie netminder Devin Green will get the start in goal on Saturday. Green picked up the win in the team’s 4-3 victory over Manitoba last Friday
