Joey Payeur
It was pretty much the definition of the complete game.
The Fort Frances Lakers dominated from start to finish here Tuesday night as they roughed up the Sioux Lookout Flyers 6-1.
The Lakers (28-13-3), who won their second-straight game and now are an impressive 16-4-2 at the Ice For Kids Arena this season, were a model of consistency in winning their seventh in a row against the Flyers (9-27-5) to improve to 8-2 on the season series.
Fort Frances scored two goals in the last half of every period, scored twice on the power play and once short-handed, and had double-digit shot totals all three periods.
Byron Katapaytuk launched the Lakers’ attack with a man-advantage tally at 12:17 of the first before Jon Sinclair added more special-teams success to the formula when he lit the lamp at 18:39 with his 10th goal of the season while Dane Morin was in the sin bin for hooking.
Katapaytuk added to his solid evening of work with his second of the game and 18th of the season at 15:38.
Matthew Caulfield then came through 1:29 later with his sixth of the campaign to put the lead at 4-0.
Jake Wentz provided a small bit of hope for Sioux Lookout with his goal at 18:49 to trim the Lakers’ advantage to three heading to the second intermission.
But in the third, Fort Frances picked right back up where it had left off, scoring another pair of quick goals—this time only 1:14 apart.
Zach McCool netted his fifth of the year at 11:15, with Tyler Stevenson picking up an assist to give himself a team-high 49 points this year—good for fourth in the SIJHL scoring race.
Jace Baldwin then completed the rout at 12:29, connecting on the power play for his 17th of the campaign, 13 of which have come with the man advantage.
The Lakers finished 2-for-5 on the power play to raise their SIJHL-best mark in that department to 25.75 percent—more than double the success rate of the fifth-ranked Flyers (12.62), who went 0-for-3 in the game.
Jameson Shortreed made 27 saves to up his record to 9-4-2 while Jesse Wilkins posted 30 stops while falling to 7-18-3-1.
Despite the win, Fort Frances remained in second place and five points back of the front-running Wisconsin Wilderness (30-6-4), who clobbered the cellar-dwelling Duluth Clydesdales 9-0 in Spooner on Tuesday.
Sioux Lookout stayed in fifth place, one point up on Duluth.
With Wisconsin holding four games in hand on the Lakers, the next four games are pivotal for Fort Frances if it plans to chase down top spot as the SIJHL’s top two teams meet three times over the next week.
Two of those match-ups will come this weekend in back-to-back battles in Wisconsin tomorrow and Saturday night.
The Lakers then will complete the three-game road swing Sunday in Duluth.
The Wilderness then visit here next Thursday (Feb. 3) for a 7:30 p.m. showdown at the Ice for Kids Arena.
