Sons need triple overtime to eliminate Trappers

Brandon Lacey was not even a member of the Nickel City Major Bantam AAA Sons at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season.

It's a pretty safe bet that his teammates are thankful he is finishing the season there.

With the Sons up two games to none over the North Bay Trappers and looking to secure their berth in the Northern Ontario AAA Hockey League championship final, Game 3 at the Ray Plourde Arena in Val Caron would drag into the late hours of Saturday night.

But at 9:24 of the third overtime period, Tommy Vlahos won a draw cleanly back to defenceman Jordan Spadafore, who drilled a waist-high shot towards the net. The deflection by Lacey, into the top glove corner, touched off the celebration for the Sons, ending the contest that covered almost 90 minutes of hockey, with Nickel City edging North Bay 5-4.

Mathieu Seguin (Nickel City) and Eric Mondoux (North Bay) traded goals in the opening period, with the teams no closer to determining a winner some 17 minutes later.

The Sons and Trappers were deadlocked 3-3 heading to the third, after Eric Lachance and Nicholas Raymond sandwiched a pair of tallies for the visitors around power-play markers from Damien Giroux and Christian Gaudreau of Nickel City.

Mondoux looked set to extend the series to a fourth game Sunday in Azilda, pulling the trigger for the second time with North Bay enjoying the man advantage. That was until Giroux, the captain of the homeside, continued his flair for the dramatic, holding off a Trappers' defender and netting the equalizer with exactly three minutes showing on the scoreboard.

Eight goals in 51 minutes, but none for the ensuing 36 minutes, as goaltenders Matty Mayhew (Nickel City) and Zachary Roy (North Bay) combined to make 92 saves.

Having dropped games last weekend by scores of 4-3 and 5-3, the Trappers received no help from Lady Luck, ringing a pair of shots directly off the crossbar in overtime, as the Sons now prepare to resume their well-established local rivalry with the Sudbury Major Bantam AAA Wolves.

"It's going to be a great series between the two teams," acknowledged Nickel City head coach John Sauvé, shortly after returning from an exhuberant and exhausted crew in the home dressing room.

"I think we have a good matchup. We've been at each other's throats for years."

In fact, Sauvé quickly recalled that Sudbury not only eliminated the Sons in the playoffs one year ago, but did so at a time when key injuries were in play for his team, as was the case for a much of the 2014-2015 regular season.

"We had a lot of injuries this year, and a lot of our team has now come back," said Sauvé. "The guys were still pretty pumped from last weekend. They wanted to sweep — they didn’t want to play tomorrow, that was for sure."

Still, the first 10-minute overtime session, which immediately followed the end of period three, provided a stark wakeup call to the Sons.

"We noticed they had more scoring chances than us in the first overtime," admitted Sauvé.

"We wanted to contain our end, take care of our end."

And at the other end of the rink, Brandon Lacey, who joined the Sons for the final 10 games following a season-ending injury to Shane Poitras, would take care of the rest.

The Sudbury-Nickel City series is expected to start on the weekend of March 14 and 15, with the Wolves playing host to games one and two. The winner will earn a trip to Timmins, site of the 2015 All-Ontario Bantam AAA championships, running from March 30 to April 4.