Sabres scrappy, but still fall to Ice Dogs

Those questioning the intensity of the young Sabres-Ice Dogs rivalry were silenced last night when an unprecedented nine fights broke out in the last minute of a 4-2 loss by the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres at the hands of the Dryden Ice Dogs.
The single-game series—which made up the fourth game and fourth loss against Dryden in a season so far totaling eight games—followed the familiar plot of the previous matches against the Ice Dogs with some scoring, some fighting, but a second period collapse the deciding factor.
“Right now, they’re (Dryden) a team that’s playing that’s playing 60 minutes. Again, for whatever reason, our second period wasn’t up to par,” head coach Wayne Strachan said.
“I can’t figure them out, what’s going through their head, why they die off. Again, it’s something we need to keep working on.”
The Sabres looked sharp early, scoring a well-executed one-timer from Mitch Cain to Quinn Amiel in the first two minutes of the contest. A well screened shot by Dryden’s Rowen Bruetsch knotted the game before the second, and three goals followed in the second—followed by two in the span of a minute.
Alessio Tomassetti concluded the scoring on a five-on-three in the third assisted by Brock Owen.
A completely different game began with a minute left in the third period, when defenceman Shaun Egan fought Nicolas Doiron in the title match, followed by Joey Shaw squaring off with Trevor Lind.
Egan and Shaw were still exchanging high-fives when Logan McDonnell dropped the gloves, shortly followed by Colin Spencer, who pointed to the crowd while leaving the ice.
Not long before the next puck dropped, all ten skaters—including Mario Boivin, JP Boucha, Jordan Matthews, Owen and Dan Usiski of the Sabres—squared off while the goaltenders and thinning benches watched.
While Strachan wasn’t pleased with the turnout of the game, he hoped the last-minute flurry of fights would “maybe bring the team a bit closer together. There’s still 45 seconds left, and we weren’t carrying the play, but sometimes that’s what a team needs to come closer together. If it works, it works,” he said.
“It would have been nice to have that momentum in the first period,” Egan opined. “I didn’t expect anyone else to jump in… but it’s nice to see.”
He added that it was good to give the fans a little extra entertainment. “You don’t need it every game, but it’s nice to see it sometimes.”
One official pointed to both benches before the ten player brawl broke out, and Strachan said while he hadn’t spoken to any officials about it, that he didn’t doubt the team will be penalized for the altercation. At the very least McDonnell will serve a one-day suspension after what was his sixth fight of the season.
While fisticuffs—and being treated for minor scrapes and injuries—were what was on everyone’s mind after the game, players were still upset that they lost what looked like a winnable game to a familiar opponent.
“We definitely had the momentum,” Cain said, “and just some small lapses on the defensive end (cost us). We just need to move the puck a little faster. I’m sure if we continued doing what we’d done in the first, the score would’ve been different.”
The game marked the second straight start for goaltender Ryan Faragher, who last played against the Thunder Bay Bearcats on Saturday, and picked up the win the night before after relieving David Novak in the first period.
Strachan wouldn’t anoint him the de facto starter and made it clear his play last night was less than flawless.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s the number one right now. He’s definitely played well these few games, and the second goal (a low, wide shot wired by Marlon Gardner on the power play), you know, you can’t score from there. And you saw our bench drop when that went in.”
The two games over the weekend against the Bearcats marked a welcome escape from the Ice Dogs, who have faced the Sabres in four of their last six games. Fort Frances took to the new opponent well, winning Friday’s game by a 5-3 score, followed by a 5-2 loss Saturday.
The goals came from across the team in the winning effort, from Cain, Kyle Turgeon, Matthew York, Owen and Boivin.
Unfortunately for the Sabres, it was Emo’s Luke Judson who was the star of Saturday’s game, scoring two goals and an assist en route to a 5-2 Bearcats victory.
While the Bearcats were a new opponent, Egan said the big change between last night and the two previous games was on the Sabres’ side of the ice.
“Two different teams showed up. Friday, if we played like that all season, we’d be number one,” he said.