Mitch Calvert
The Fort Frances Jr. Sabres certainly have shown a knack for scoring goals so far this pre-season—and the offence provided up and down the roster hasn’t made the selection process any easier for head coach Wayne Strachan and his staff as they look to narrow the team down prior to their Sept. 19 home-opener against the Thunder Bay Bearcats.
“We still have to go over our special teams and the personnel we will use for them,” Strachan noted. “We have two weeks and some tough decisions to make to get down to 20 players.”
After opening the pre-season with a 9-3 win over the Wisconsin Mustangs here last Wednesday night, the Sabres have since hit the ice three times in games against fellow SIJHL rivals.
They first hosted the Fort William North Stars, a perennial contender to represent the league in the Dudley Hewitt Cup, on Friday night and dropped a 5-2 decision.
“Against the North Stars Friday in our loss, I think we were nervous, stood around and watched them play, and were very undisciplined in taking penalties,” Strachan wrote in an e-mail to the Times.
“They got an early jump on us in the first period on an undisciplined penalty to go down five-on-three, and they are a team that can capitalize in those situations,” he added.
The Sabres did battle back from an early 3-0 deficit in the second period, with Dan Smith netting a power-play goal to break the goose egg, but too often the North Stars were able to capitalize on defensive breakdowns and man-advantage situations while the Sabres didn’t.
Fort William notched their fourth goal on a rebound despite an initially impressive sliding pad save by newly-acquired goalie Tanner Sheridan.
The visitors added another one a short time later, but Mario Boivin responded for the Sabres 30 seconds after that one when he stepped in from the point and fired home the puck to make it 5-2.
The Sabres could get no closer from there, though, and plenty of fights broke out down the stretch as the bad blood spilled over—certainly setting the table for plenty more heated match-ups to come.
Fort Frances then played a pair of games in Sioux Lookout over the weekend against the expansion Flyers, earning back-to-back victories by scores of 9-1 and 6-1.
“[The] Sioux games were their first two, and we have been on the ice a week-and-a-half more than them,” Strachan conceded.
“You could see this in the difference in play and conditioning,” he added. “We were faster, stronger, and capitalized on a lot of scoring chances.”
Strachan said both returning goalie David Novak (who served as back-up last season to the departed Ryan Faragher) and Sheridan have looked good in their two appearances—and it’s very likely they will share the duties in a platoon situation at least to start the campaign.
“No decisions are final with our opening-day starter,” Strachan noted. “As far as our staff is concerned, we have two number-ones and they will most likely play every second night for a while.”
Sheridan came to the team last week from the Kimberley Dynamiters of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, where he posted a 13-5 record with a stingy 2.96 goals against average and .896 save percentage last season.
“For the most part in exhibition, our [coaching] staff has been fairly happy with the play of our team,” Strachan said. “In our three wins we have showed speed, puck movement, good defensive play, and an all-around team effort.”
Despite a number of positives to take home from their 3-1 exhibition record to date, Strachan said a few things of note still need to be addressed moving forward.
“We will continue to work hard on our team defence, our discipline in our systems, and in our judgements,” he stressed.
The Sabres’ exhibition schedule continues with a home-and-home series this coming weekend against the defending SIJHL champion Dryden Ice Dogs, with the finale slated for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice for Kids Arena.
