Lucas Punkari
Slow and steady may win the race, but it’ll take a lot more than that for anyone to stop the Wisconsin Wilderness.
Having already clinched the SIJHL’s regular-season crown, the Wilderness brought their quick-fire artillery to the Ice For Kids Arena here Saturday night and skated away with a 4-2 victory over the host Fort Frances Lakers.
After the game, Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan cited his team’s slow start in the opening period as the turning point.
“The biggest thing we talked about before the game was taking the momentum to them early and wearing them down, but it just didn’t’ happen,” he lamented.
“We came out flat and took two bad penalties early on, which their power play was able to capitalize on, and it just set us back from there,” Strachan noted.
“You can’t play a wide-open, fast-pace game against them,” he stressed.
“You need to keep it on the boards and use the cycle to your advantage in order to have success.
“And if you can’t do that, the outcome will end up like it did tonight [Saturday].”
The Lakers had their chances to try and get back into the game during the second and third periods, but they ran straight into red-hot Wilderness goalie Jake Hebda, who made 40 saves en route to his 13th-consecutive win between the pipes.
“Jake’s played very well for us all year,” said Wilderness head coach and general manager Rod Aldoff.
“Him and John [McLean] have been the backbone for us all season, and they allow us to do what we’ve been able do all season,” he reasoned.
With the Lakers running into penalty trouble in the opening 20 minutes, the Wilderness’ power-play unit took full advantage of the extra space on the ice—grabbing a 2-0 lead as Lucas Hendrickson and Nathan Paulsen both beat Lakers’ goalie Tyler Ampe.
The Lakers got within a goal at the 14:21 mark of the second when Jon Sinclair put home a rebound. But any momentum was short-lived as James Kline waltzed into the slot just 22 seconds later and fired a nice backhander into the top of the net.
The visitors upped their lead early in the third thanks to Matthew Mulqueen’s seventh goal of the season, and third in as many games, as the Wilderness outshot the Lakers 27-9 over the final frame.
Rookie Ryan Wildman replied for the Lakers late in the game, but they ran out of time as the league-leaders earned their 42nd win of the season.
“The thing about our team is that we have a really great chemistry,” Hebda explained.
“We go balls to the wall every practice, we work very hard, and set some high goals for ourselves, and so far it’s working out for us,” he added.
The Lakers closed out their regular-season home schedule yesterday evening against the Dryden Ice Dogs, with Strachan hoping his team would take care of business and wrap up the second seed for the playoffs before concluding the regular season tomorrow night in Sioux Lookout.
“I don’t want to have a must-win situation where we have to wait until the last minute in order to clinch second [place],” Strachan remarked.
“If we run into to trouble here, the [Thunder Bay] North Stars could catch us for the second spot,” he warned.
“So we’ll need to ramp up our level of play in order to make sure that we stay in that second seed.”
