Photos: Hélène Rancourt
BLIND RIVER, Ont. – A four-point night from Cameron Menard aided in the Hearst Lumberjacks defeating the Blind River Beavers 7-4 in Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League play Saturday at the Blind River Community Centre.
Going to work on the night’s initial power play, Hearst’s Luc Warner put a shot to the net that looked to clip off the skate of Menard and changed direction before it got through the legs of Blind River starter Édouard Blais.
A barrage of tallies in the final eight minutes of the first period saw each team connect twice as the Lumberjacks took a 3-2 lead into the intermission.
Alex Ivanov tied it for the Beavers at 12:18, with a shot upstairs from the right circle, on a lengthy man advantage.
Hearst came right back and banged in two of their own as Dylan Westmann and William Fournier clicked less than a minute apart to put the guests ahead by a pair.
Michael Lewandowski then notched his first in the NOJHL for the home side at 18:53 as he neatly chipped in a Ryder Hill feed past netminder Caleb Hennings.
The assist gives Hill points in seven straight.
In the middle frame, Blind River wasted little time in tying it as Braden Yudt connected just nine seconds in as a fortuitous bounce off the end boards off a dump in came his way and he cranked it in before Hennings could get back to his net.
Menard on a man advantage gave Hearst the lead once more as Westmann darted around the back of the net and fed him on the left side where he quickly converted.
The Lumberjacks added another at 16:03 thanks to Kadin Bilajbegovic, who worked his way into the Beavers’ zone and wired a shot by Blais from a prime scoring area.
In the final frame, more from Menard had him double the Hearst lead as he spun between the circles and slid in a low shot.
Caleb Walker got one more for Blind River on a shorthanded breakaway before Owen Kahl iced it with an empty netter late to wrap up the road result for Hearst.
The game also featured back-up netminders Jack Helkie of the visitors and Samuel Carreiras-Pata of the hosts seeing time in net in relief.
With the outcome, the Lumberjacks win their fourth in a row and improve to 8-5-0-0 overall.
In defeat Beavers fall to 6-7-1-0.
