Memorial Cup: Oshawa Generals get past Quebec Remparts

It seemed that goalie Zach Fucale would stop everything in overtime until Oshawa Generals defenceman Stephen Desrocher found the answer.

Desrocher stepped to the middle and whipped one in off the crossbar at 18:07 of the extra period to lift the Ontario Hockey League champion Generals to a 5-4 victory over the host Quebec Remparts on Sunday night at the Mastercard Memorial Cup.

"It was a great individual effort by Steve," said Oshawa centre Cole Cassels, who won the draw back to Desrocher for the game-winning goal.

It was Oshawa's 18th shot of the overtime period and 50th of the game. Fucale had been brilliant in turning away many of them.

The win guaranteed the Generals (2-0) at least a spot in the semifinals of the four-team tournament and gave them a chance to take first place in the round-robin stage if they can win Tuesday night against the Western Hockey League champion Kelowna Rockets.

Oshawa's Tobias Lindberg forced extra time with a one-timer from close range on a power play with 2:09 left in regulation time, to the dismay of most of the 10,970 at the Pepsi Colisee.

The Generals had blown three one-goal leads, the last one when Dmytro Timashov scored twice in a 3:09 span of the third to give Quebec (1-1) its first lead.

"All the boys played a great game and I guess I was the lucky guy to get the final one," said Desrocher, who scored a near identical goal in a 4-3 win over the Quebec champion Rimouski Oceanic a day earlier. "I knew I didn't have a shooting lane at first and I tried to get around a guy and just tried to get it on net and it went in."

The NHL draft-eligible Timashov, a Ukrainian-born Swede who ended a 17-game goal drought, beat Ken Appleby on a bad-angle shot from the right side on a power play to tie the game at 5:39. Then, he scored another from a tight angle on the left side at 8:48 to make it 4-3 Quebec.

The Remparts looked to be hanging on for the win until Guillaume Gauthier took a needless hit-to-the-head penalty at 15:54 of the third and Cassels fed Lindberg to tie it.

"We were playing well five on five," said Quebec coach Philippe Boucher. "Even if they had 50 shots, the score was close and we had a chance to win.

"I wish we were more disciplined. But it's not the end of the world. We'll come back strong."

The Generals outshot Quebec 50-25 and had the Remparts hemmed in their zone for long stretches with a persistent forechecking and cycling game.

But the quick-footed Remparts made the most of their chances against the less-than stellar Appleby.

Michael McCarron, Michael Dal Colle and Dakota Mermis had the other goals for Oshawa, while rearguards Raphael Maheux and Ryan Graves also scored for the Remparts.

"They brought it to us," said Graves. "We're a smaller team, but once we used our speed they had trouble skating with us, I thought."