Lucas Punkari
Looking only at their 11-0-0-1 record, it might be safe to assume the Muskie boys’ hockey team had a fairly easy time of things in NorWOSSA league play this season en route to yet another regular-season crown.
However, it’s been anything but a cake-walk for the black-and-gold as their final two home games clearly showed.
Fort High prevailed in a wild 7-6 shootout affair with the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora) last Tuesday night, then followed that up with a narrow 4-3 victory over the Dryden Eagles on Thursday.
Nevertheless, the Muskies were able to wrap up the regular-season title with Thursday’s win over the Eagles, and now have home-ice advantage for the post-season.
“For the guys to bounce back as well as they did against Dryden after our game against St. Thomas Aquinas was great to see,” lauded Muskie head coach Shawn Jourdain.
“It’s a long season and every team will have a slide where they will have a bit of a bad game, which is what happened to us against the Saints,” he noted.
“But we were able to recover with the win and grab first place in the standings.”
The Muskies trailed the Eagles by a goal on two occasions until Josh Gouin tied the score with a point blast in third period, which was followed a couple of minutes later by the game-winning marker from Ryan Windigo.
“I was pretty exciting about scoring that goal,” enthused Windigo, a Grade 12 forward playing in his first season with the Muskies.
“I had a lot of really good chances prior to that one, so I was really wanting to put one into the net to help the team,” he stressed.
“It was kind of a garbage goal, as I just banged it into the net, but it turned out to be the game-winning one.”
Jeff Davis and Cole Godbout also scored for the black-and-gold while Tarran Romyn assisted on a pair of goals.
The third period also saw the Muskies utilize their physical style of play to their advantage, which was something Jourdain was pleased to see.
“That period, and the game itself, was probably one of most solid efforts that we have turned in all year long,” he remarked.
“One of the things that we want our guys to do is to finish up their checks and to use the body from whistle to whistle, and tonight [Thursday] they did an excellent job of that.”
“Our goal tonight [Thursday] was to make the other team scared and think a lot when they have the puck, and that helped us to get the win,” agreed Windigo.
That type of play from the Muskies was nowhere to be found in last Tuesday’s win over the Saints as the game quickly turned into a track meet with both teams trading goals throughout.
After overtime solved nothing, the game headed to a shootout, where Robbie Rea’s shot in the seventh round trickled past Saints’ goalie Ryan Landon for the win.
“We seem to be playing down to the other team’s level as of late,” Muskie assistant coach Brad Gushulak sighed after the game.
“We just seem to come out and wait and see how the other team plays,” he noted. “And if they come out scoring, we come out scoring and we don’t play our style of game.
“We are a better team than what we showed tonight [Jan. 31] and it’s pretty frustrating,” Gushulak added.
Rea, who scored twice, and Windigo, who tallied once, both had three points to lead the black-and-gold, with Tyler Mosbeck, Chris Bobczynski, and Hunter Leishman also scoring.
One of the positives of last Tuesday’s game, along with Thursday’s win, was the play of Grade 9 goalie Jonah Johnson, who has been called up from the Fort Frances Canadians Bantam ‘AA’ team because starter Scott Parsons currently is sidelined with mononucleosis.
“Any time that you can get a hand from a kid like that is fantastic, especially when Jonah’s been as hot as he’s been for us,” Jourdain said.
“And we need to thank [Bantam ‘AA’ head coach] Jamie [Davis] for allowing us to have him play with us.
“Right now, we’re just going to see how Scotty is feeling this week, and then we will see how things go from there,” Jourdain added.
The Muskies have two road games left in their NorWOSSA regular-season schedule, traveling to Sioux Lookout tomorrow before visiting Dryden on Friday.
After that, the black-and-gold will have one last exhibition contest—the annual border battle against the International Falls Broncos on Friday, Feb. 17 at 7:15 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena—before the playoffs begin.
“We’re already looking forward to that one and we’ve been talking about it an awful lot in the dressing room as of late,” Windigo noted.
“But we do know that we have to take things one game at a time right now, and we’re looking at Sioux Lookout and Dryden first before we face the Broncos,” he stressed.
