Lucas Punkari
Fort Frances Lakers’ forward Brett McMahon has a flair for the dramatic.
Last February, the then Muskie netted the game-winning goal in overtime against the visiting International Falls Broncos to give the black-and-gold the win in the annual border battle.
Fast-forward nearly 13 months later, and McMahon was the hero once again at the Ice For Kids Arena as his shot in the 11th round of a shootout eluded Wisconsin Wilderness goalie Tanner Milliron—allowing the Lakers to claim the 1 vs. 2 showdown series Saturday night and give them their choice of opponent for the SIJHL semi-finals.
“This is pretty high up there as one of the biggest goals in my career,” the 17-year-old Fort Frances native smiled afterwards.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to shoot or deke to begin with,” he admitted. “But as I came down, he [Milliron] opened up and I just took a shot and it went in.
“We have actually been practising our shootouts quite a bit in the last two weeks just in case we found ourselves in a situation just like this,” noted Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“And Brett had been one of the guys who had been scoring.
“Going into that shootout round, I had a couple of other defenders in my mind and [assistant coach] Jon [Cooper] was giving me another forward’s name,” he added.
“But I just had a gut feeling with Brett, and he went down and scored a nice goal.”
After dropping the first two-game, total-goal leg of the series in Spooner, Wis. by a combined score of 9-4 the previous weekend, the Lakers forced a shootout to determine the series champ by winning the home portion of the series by a two-game, total score of 8-4 over Friday and Saturday nights.
The skills competition ended up becoming a back-and-forth affair between the two squads, with nifty moves being made by Lakers’ forward Byron Katapaytuk and Wilderness sniper Wilson Housley to find the back of the net.
But it was the goaltending heroics of Tyler Ampe that helped set the stage for McMahon’s series-clincher.
“That shootout was something else,” the Lakers’ netminder exhaled afterwards.
“All year long I’ve been struggling in the shootouts, which was the opposite of what happened to me last year where I was doing well until the showdown series here,” he noted.
“This year, to be able to battle back with our team and win it is just huge for us, and I think this tells the other teams in this league that we are ready to go win the championship and go on to play the Dudley Hewitt Cup,” Ampe enthused.
“I thought that Tyler was the biggest reason that we won the game tonight [Saturday],” Strachan said.
“He made numerous saves through that game that showed that he’s back to his old self again, and in the shootout I can’t say enough for what he did there,” he lauded.
“The toughest job in the shootout is probably for the goaltender in keeping the pucks out of the net, and he did a great job by making some key saves on some good hockey players that came in on him one-on-one.”
One of those key saves came in the eighth round of the shootout, when Ampe closed the five-hole on the Wilderness’ Steve Hughes and watched as the puck narrowly came closing to crossing the goal line.
“I was actually looking for the puck as one of the officials was yelling no goal,” he recalled.
“I turned around to see the puck was spinning right on the goal line, and all I could think in my head was to just get the heck out of there.”
In the game itself, the Lakers held off a late push by the Wilderness to earn a 4-3 victory, although the two goals scored by the Wilderness late in the third period came after the overall outcome of the series was well decided.
“The number-one thing for us in that game was our power play, as we clicked on our first two opportunities,” noted Strachan, referring to the goals scored by Jon Carlson and Ryan Wildman.
“After our first goal [scored by Carlson], we began to pressure the puck a bit more and created a lot of turnovers out there, and we carried that over into the second and created numerous opportunities.
“I didn’t like a whole lot of what we did in the third as I thought they took it to us,” Strachan added.
“But one thing I did like was that we were using the boards to get the puck out of our end when they had the extra attacker, as that helped to relive the pressure in our zone.”
Wildman notched his second of the night in the third period after a poor clearing attempt by Milliron while Jaret Leclair completed the home side’s scoring with an empty-netter.
In the first game of the second leg Friday night, the Lakers dominated the Wilderness in a 4-1 triumph, with forward Adam Wensley making a triumphant return to the lineup as he scored a goal and assisted on two others
“I’ve been waiting to get back into the lineup for a couple of weeks now, and this feels great,” said Wensley, who had last suited up for the Lakers on Feb. 21 before being sidelined with a left knee injury.
“I was reunited with my old line [Jordan Larson and Davis Smith] and we just clicked right, and everyone else down the roster was playing a good game, as well, which was great to see,” he added.
Larson assisted on two of the Lakers’ goals, with Katapaytuk, Blake Boaz and Jordan Christianson also tallying.
Following the series victory, the Lakers elected to meet fourth-place Dryden in the semi-finals, with the Ice Dogs coming off a five-game triumph in the quarter-finals over the Sioux Lookout Flyers.
The best-of-seven series, scheduled to get underway here Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena, marks the third-straight year the Lakers will square off with the Ice Dogs in the semi-finals, with Dryden having won the last two encounters in six games.
“Those games are going to be intense, and I think the first two games will be the most crucial,” Ampe stressed.
“Having the home-ice advantage to start off, I think, is going to be a huge thing for us,” he noted. “And if we are able to win those games, I think we could be in control of the series.
Game 2 is set for 7:30 p.m. here on Saturday night, with Games 3 and 4 taking place in Dryden next Tuesday and Wednesday (March 20-21).
If necessary, Game 5 will be back in Fort Frances on Friday, March 23, with Game 6 back in Dryden on Sunday, March 25.
A seventh and deciding game, if needed, will be held at the Ice For Kids Arena on Tuesday, March 27.
Meanwhile, the defending SIJHL champ Wilderness will host the third-place Thunder Bay North Stars this weekend to open their best-of-seven semi-final series.
The North Stars swept the Duluth Clydesdales in the quarter-finals.
“I told the guys after the game tonight [Saturday] that the real work for us starts now,” said Wilderness head coach and general manager Rod Aldoff.
“This series is what it is with the goals and the shootouts and everything, which is great for the fans, of course,” he added.
“But now we’re getting ready for what we came to do, and we’re looking forward to it.”
