The Greater Sudbury Cubs are not separating themselves from the crowd, but they are right in the thick of things as the defending NOJHL (Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League) champs picked up five points in a busy three games in three days stretch this weekend.

The sequence was set in motion Thursday night at home as the Cubs netted a pair of second period power play goals just 37 seconds apart, breaking open a 1-0 affair and skating their way to a 4-1 win over the Elliot Lake Vikings.

Defenceman Alex Valade buried the only goal of the opening frame, also with Sudbury holding a man advantage, as that scoreline held firm until almost the midway point of this contest.

But an inopportune five on three skewered the visiting Vikes as both Samuel Assinewai and Mason Walker solved Elliot Lake puckstopper Ryder Lally, the young man enjoying himself an evening with a 44-save performance.

The Vikings got on the board in the third courtesy of Kaiden Emond but Valade offset that tally with his second of the game as former Elliot Lake goaltender Matthew Vahramian registered his first win of the season for the Cubs.

Facing a Hearst Lumberjacks side which tripled the locals 6-2 a week or so ago, Sudbury managed to earn another point along the Highway 11 corridor, falling 5-4 in overtime to coach Marc-Alain Begin and company.

Lucas Signoretti scored twice in the first, giving the Cubs a 2-1 lead, with Ben Harris (4:16 - 2nd) and Cameron Shanks (10:35 - 3rd) adding goals later on.

But Mathieu Comeau, with a pair, and Tyler Patterson and Henry Ouellet with one marker apiece forced overtime where Bronson Babyak sent the hometown folks home happy.

The Cubs closed things off Saturday evening with a 4-3 win over the Iroquois Falls Storm as the teams conjested their offense in the middle stanza.

Scoring three times each, the Cubs (Kyle Navarro, Jacob Signoretti, Brady Bouchard) and Storm (Alexandre St Pierre, Landon Tretheway, Michael Leech) exited the second period deadlocked at 3-3.

Lucas Signoretti, NOJHL scoring champion in 2023-2024, would snipe his third goal of the two-game road trek, recording the game-winner as Sudbury bumped their season mark up to 2-1-1-1.

Those six points in five games leave the Cubs tied with Hearst for second place in the 12-team single division loop, two points back of the Timmins Rock (4-0-0-0), one ahead of Soo Thunderbirds (2-0-1-0) and two up on the Blind River Beavers (2-1-0-0), all of whom hold games in hand.

Sudbury is back at home for a pair of games on back to back evenings, hosting the Espanola Paper Kings on Thursday and Soo Eagles on Friday before closing off the weekend with a Sunday afternoon affair in Noelville opposite the French River Rapids.