Mitch Calvert
With surely as much as a helpless feeling one can ever have as a coach, Wayne Strachan watched the final seconds tick off the clock Friday night at the Ice for Kids Arena as his Fort Frances Jr. Sabres suffered a heart-wrenching 8-5 defeat at the hands of the Fort William North Stars.
A spirited first two periods showed plenty of promise, with the Sabres holding a 5-3 lead after 40 minutes, but five-straight goals by the Stars over the final 20 minutes dashed all hopes of getting that first victory of the season out of the way.
“It was very hard to swallow the collapse we had in the third period,” Strachan said. “To play like we did for 40 minutes, and then come out and just give the game away, really is not acceptable.”
The horrible third period overshadowed some impressive plays in the first half of the game, including two individual efforts by Dan Smith and Dan Usiski that both resulted in breakaway goals.
But the Stars showed they are not a team you can coast to victory against, and carried the play right from the start of the third period to steal a road win and extend the Sabres’ winless streak to four games to start their second season in the SIJHL.
“The North Stars have been the team to beat for many years in this league now,” Strachan noted. “For two periods we out-skated, hit, and scored them. It was no fluke we were the better team for 40 minutes.
“But 40 minutes isn’t enough and in the third, we didn’t skate, hit, or play anywhere near the team we were in the first two periods.”
The Sabres couldn’t execute when they had opportunities to secure their lead in the third period, including a five-on-three advantage that led to a shorthanded breakaway goal for the Stars as soon as the first penalized player stepped out of the box.
Mitch Forbes gave the Stars their first lead shortly after that on a blast from just inside the point on a partial breakaway, beating Sabres’ goalie David Novak to the blocker side that ricocheted off the post and in to give the visitors all the momentum they would need to ice the victory.
“You can’t blame this loss on one player or a goaltender,” Strachan remarked. “It was a team loss right from the coach to every player.
“Yes, we needed a game-breaking save or a chip out of our zone, but I should’ve called a time-out after their fourth goal,” he admitted. “We were yelling at the ref for a time-out, but they didn’t hear us.
“Then I thought we should wait, but ultimately I should’ve called a time-out and re-grouped the troops.”
The Sabres will have plenty of time to regroup with just two games over the next week, beginning with a road match-up tonight against the expansion Sioux Lookout Flyers.
“We are not going to panic,” Strachan stressed. “I think we have proved that we can play and once we taste our first win, more will come.
“We have a goal to be .500 by Oct. 11, [and] we can achieve this with hard work and putting four 60-minute hockey games together,” he remarked.
Those four games include tonight’s tilt in Sioux Lookout, a home game against the Dryden Ice Dogs next Tuesday (Oct. 7), and then a pair on the road against the Schreiber Diesels on Oct. 10-11.
If there was a time to make hay, this would be a good stretch to do so.
The Sabres have been on the losing end of some close games and haven’t performed well in third periods—signs some would say suggest a lack of conditioning.
“Some say it is because we are not in good enough shape, but I disagree, we work hard every day in practice and dryland [training],” Strachan insisted. “We stopped competing, we lost one-on-one battles, and we made turnovers in the third [against Fort William] that we didn’t make in the first two periods.”
The power play, which was a strong point in their Sept. 19-20 series against the Thunder Bay Bearcats to open the season, let them down against Fort William on Friday night.
“We have to be better in this aspect of our game,” Strachan stressed. “We have to be more patient, and not force our passes or shots. [We need to] learn to control the puck and take advantage of the other team’s [penalty kill] breakdowns.”
It’s certainly not all bad news for the Sabres. Their quiet offence came alive with five goals against Fort William after only scoring six in their first three games, but Strachan said the players need to play within themselves and relish their respective roles with the team in order to start seeing some numbers in the win column.
“I believe in repetition and the more you sink things into these players, the better they execute it,” Strachan said. “We need some veterans to find their game and play the role they have on our team.
“It seems like too many guys are trying to do too much, and have to get back to just playing the way they can,” he added.
