ESTEVAN - The Estevan Bruins were seconds away from being down 3-2 in their best-of-seven SJHL final against the Flin Flon Bombers.
Instead, they mustered a 3-2 overtime victory Saturday night at Affinity Place to take the 3-2 lead in the series.
Defenceman Nolan Jones' point shot through a maze of players with 5.8 seconds to play in the third period was the tying goal for Estevan, and Olivier Pouliot notched the overtime winner with 7:47 to play in the first overtime period.
Pouliot redirected a shot by defenceman Alex Von Sprecken for the winner.
After a closely-contested opening 10 minutes of the first peiriod, Flin Flon opened the scoring on a power-play goal by Jaeden Mercier. Estevan had its best chances to score in the frame after Mercier's goal, but their momentum was stymied by penalties..
Bombers' captain Zak Smith scored late in the frame for the 2-0 lead.
Eric Pearce scored on a wrap around after an end-to-end rush to cut the Bombers' lead in half. The Bruins then carried the play and had several chances to score, but couldn't convert, and then ran into more penalty problems.
Flin Flon had six straight power plays at one point.
The Bruins outshot the Bombers 51-35. Boston Bilous (Estevan) and Cal Schell (Flin Flon) were the goaltenders.
Bilous made several critical saves for Estevan in the second period when it was still a 2-1 game and the Bombers were pressing on the power plays.
Schell made a stellar save off of Pearce in the final minute of the third, just before Jones' goal, and added another in overtime off of Damon Byers.
The announced crowd for the game was 2,234 fans. The crowd was boisterous throughout the night, with fans for both teams bringing an assortment of noise makers, but was at its loudest after Jones' and Pouliot's goals.
Game 6 is slated for Tuesday night in Flin Flon. The Bruins can wrap up the series with a win.
SaskToday.ca will have updates after each game.
