Athens Aeros forward Michael McKenney appears to be turning the Rideau Division final into an extended birthday celebration.

The rookie, whose 17th birthday is Thursday, scored three goals the night before to lead his team to a 4-1 victory over the home-ice Gananoque Islanders in Game 2 of the Eastern Ontario Junior Hockey League playoff series.

Those goals came on the heels of a two-goal performance in Game 1 on Sunday night, also a 4-1 Athens win. (At one point, he had scored four straight goals for Athens — the last two Sunday and the first two Wednesday.)

The owner of a modest 11 goals in 44 games in the regular season, the Smiths Falls native now has nine in nine playoff games, including seven in his past three games and eight in the last four. He's tied with Gan's Chris Smith for second among league playoff goal scorers.

McKenney scored first Wednesday night with just 56 seconds left in the first period. A minute and 10 seconds later in scoreboard-clock time, he had given the Aeros a 2-0 lead.

Smith's ninth goal of the playoffs, midway through the second period, made it a 2-1 game and the score stayed that way until Emerson Moulton gave Athens some breathing room with a goal with 2:16 left. With 25 seconds left, McKenney added his third goal.

Aeros goaltender Erik Miksik didn't cool down one bit Wednesday night, stopping 43 of 44 shots directed his way. His GAA is now down to 1.58 and his SV% up to .959 as he ran his playoff winning streak to four games (6-2 overall).

One of the key players Miksik and the Aeros kept off the scoresheet was MVP Wyatt Cota. A 100-point man in the regular season, he has no points in the Rideau final after picking up just five in the seven-game semifinal against the Westport Rideaus, with three of those coming in one game.

Drew Lawson saw his first action in the Gan goal since Game 1 of the Rideau semifinal and made 26 saves.