The Greater Sudbury Cubs are within one win of their first NOJHL (Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League) title since the 2007-2008 season and a franchise first trip to the Centennial Cup after clipping the Powassan Voodoos 4-3 in overtime last night, increasing their best of seven series lead to three games to one.
Coach Darryl Moxam and company will have the chance to wrap things up at home come Thursday night as the puck drops on game 5 at 7:05 p.m. at the Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex.
In large part, the Cubs have Sudbury Wolves' prospect Hudson Chitaroni (3rd rd - 2023) to thank for that after the son of former Wolf Terry Chitaroni opened the scoring midway through period one and closed out the scoring with the game-winning goal at 14:26 of the first overtime period, perfectly deflecting a shot from Samuel Assinewai.
Where Sudbury led games two and three from pretty much start to finish, the same could not be said for this contest as both Mathieu MacMillan and Cameron Lemcke answered the Chitaroni ice-breaker with first period power-play markers for the home side.
Nolan Newton pulled the Cubs even in the second, recording his 10th of the post-season season, also with his team enjoying a man advantage, setting the stage for a critical 20 minutes of play.
The teams traded tallies in the third, interestingly just 16 seconds apart as Mathieu MacMillan gave the Voodoos their second lead of the night (13:58) only to see Nolan Newton follow suit at 14:14.
Sudbury goaltender Noah Metivier may have seen his lengthy shutout streak snapped in the initial frame but that did not stop the 20 year-old Sault Ste Marie native from making 46 stops on the night, with Daniel Dirracolo (27/31) tagged with the loss at the other end of the rink.
Chitaroni and Newton now share the NOJHL playoff scoring lead with 21 points apiece, leapfrogging Harry Clark (10G-10A) of the Timmins Rock.
The 2024 Centennial Cup is set to take place in Oakville with game action beginning on May 9th and the championship encounter slatted for the afternoon of Sunday, May 19th.
