Lucas Punkari
Following a 4-3 shootout loss to the Dryden Ice Dogs here Jan. 30, Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan stressed the importance of his team being more consistent heading into the playoffs.
After this past weekend’s home games—a 4-2 win over the Ice Dogs on Friday and a 3-2 overtime loss to the Sioux Lookout Flyers the following night—it was easy to see that Strachan was very pleased with the improved play he saw from the squad.
“The guys definitely came to play, and for the better part of 115 out of 120 minutes in the two games, we were very good,” he noted.
“Right now we are dominating down low and having some success in our cycles, and that has allowed us to have many scoring opportunities,” Strachan added.
“On Friday, we started out really strong. And even though we had a little lull in the third period, we worked out of it and got the win.
“Tonight [Saturday], we were a little bit snake-bitten in front of the net, but that’s the way it goes sometimes,” he reasoned.
The red-and-white fired 41 shots on goal against Sioux Lookout but were turned aside numerous times by Flyers’ affiliate netminder Matt Benson.
Then with the game tied 2-2 and a shootout appearing imminent, the Flyers cashed in on a scoring chance with just 21 seconds to go when former Laker Dane Morin slid a rebound past Lakers’ goalie Tanner Hamilton to earn the victory.
“Our line [which includes Chris Hoffman and Anthony Wolfe] was getting out there a lot, and we were just hoping to get one of our shots in as we had rang a couple off of the posts just before that,” recalled Morin, who was traded to the Flyers along with Mike Riffel and Jon Stephansson for Bryan Broders and Brandon Fehd back in December.
“One of our defencemen, Anthony Bonner, threw one on net and I just crashed in there, and the puck was sitting between Tanner’s legs and I was able to hammer it home.
“It feels amazing right now, and this is one goal that I will never forget,” Morin enthused.
“He’s been awesome for us,” Flyers’ head coach Brad Zangs said of Morin, who has 21 points in 19 games since coming to Sioux Lookout.
“I hated to see guys like Brandon [Fehd] and Bryan [Broders] go as they are both really good kids, but it turned out to be a nice trade for us and he’s been working out fine,” Zangs added.
While the Flyers were celebrating their overtime triumph, the Lakers were lamenting the fact that a chance for a victory had slipped away, especially after controlling most of the game and having the majority of the scoring chances.
“Obviously I’m not happy with the outcome, but for the most part I thought we dominated the game,” Strachan said.
“In the third period we had a little bit of a tough time, which is a little bit alarming as in the last couple of games we’ve let teams come back into the game, but overall it was a good game.
“It’s a tough one to swallow, though, as I thought we played hard enough to deserve the win,” he added.
“But my hat goes off to their young goalie Benson as he really stepped up for them.”
Jon Carlson and Ryan Wildman scored for the Lakers in Saturday’s loss, with Byron Katapaytuk assisting on both goals.
Those two points gave Katapaytuk a total of 72 in 44 games played, and now is 10 ahead of teammate Jordan Larson in the SIJHL scoring race.
Brett Wur and Jacob Nolan also scored the Flyers while Hoffman, recent recipient of SIJHL’s player-of-the-month award for January, collected a pair of assists.
Quick start
In Friday’s game against the Ice Dogs, the Lakers jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead, then were able to withstand another late push by Dryden to take the 4-2 victory.
“We came out flying in the first period as we very crisp in moving the puck, and as we also created a lot of turnovers by having a ton of pressure on them,” Strachan noted.
“We knew coming into this game that we had to come out right away in the first period as Dryden is a team that loves to come back in the third period,” said Wildman.
“And we were able to do that to get the win.”
As predicted, the Ice Dogs dominated the first half of the third as they cut the deficit down to one and had many chances to knot the score.
But with about eight-and-a-half minutes to go, Wildman raced in all alone and put a back-hander past Ice Dogs’ goalie Kim Wildhaber to regain the Lakers’ two-goal cushion.
“Jaret [Leclair] made a nice chip off of the boards and I got the puck in a ton of space, which I didn’t think I had until he told me,” recalled Wildman, who also assisted on two other goals.
“I was able to relax and skate in as a result, and I faked the forehand and went backhand, which had worked pretty well for me in practice this week and I was able to score on it again.”
Lakers’ blueliner Steve Terry led the offensive attack with a pair of first-period goals, which turned out to be an even more impressive feat seeing as he didn’t even know if he would be able to play Friday night due to illness.
“I had been feeling sick all week and after the pre-game meal today [Friday], I felt even worse and I was getting pretty dizzy also,” he admitted.
“But I toughed it out as I really wanted to beat Dryden like everyone else in the room, and getting the opening goal for our team felt great as it got us going,” he added.
Jordan Christianson had the other goal for the Lakers in the opening frame.
Even though they ended their recent struggles against Dryden, the Lakers won’t have to wait long until the Ice Dogs come at them once again as both teams will square off there tonight.
“We know what we have to do to beat them,” Wildman remarked.
“We had a couple of leads slip away to them as of late, but now we know what it takes to hold on to those leads,” he noted.
“And we just need to keep on doing that heading into the playoffs.”
After tonight’s game, the Lakers will return to the Ice For Kids Arena for a pair of weekend contests, hosting the expansion Iron Range Ironheads on Friday before welcoming the league-leading Wisconsin Wilderness to town the following night.
Both games will start at 7:30 p.m.
“Iron Range is a team that can surprise you on any given night, and you have to be in the right frame of mind when you are playing them, which is even more important for us as we don’t want to get into any bad habits prior to Saturday,” Strachan stressed.
“Our team has set a goal to win our last two games of the season against Wisconsin, and I hope that the guys are ready for the task and are ready to step up,” he added.
