Lucas Punkari
Fort Frances Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan is stressing patience as his team looks to dig its way out of a 0-3-0-0 start to the 2012-13 SIJHL season.
“Obviously to not have a win yet is frustrating to all of us, but as a staff we are not pushing the panic button,” Strachan stressed.
“We know that we are young, as that is what rebuilding is all about, and we will continue to work with our players to become better and to grasp our systems,” he added.
After going winless in four pre-season games, then waiting nearly a week to begin their regular-season slate, the Lakers fell 3-2 to the Minnesota Iron Rangers in Hoyt Lakes last Wednesday night despite outshooting their opponents 37-25.
“I thought we played for 40 minutes,” Strachan noted. “But as I’ve said in the past, it’s a 60-minute game.
“For the most part, we came out strong in the first period and we were generating things, plus we moved the puck well on the power play to score our first goal,” he recalled.
“In the second period, we came out flat and allowed them to start to build some momentum.
“And while we regrouped again in the third period by out-chancing them, it was too little, too late,” Strachan lamented.
Kevin Kurm and Owen Stauber scored for the Lakers in that one while goals by Jay Routheau, Riley Daly, and Jonathon Losurdo helped the Iron Rangers earn their second win of the campaign.
Then on Friday night, the Lakers returned to the friendly confines of the Ice For Kids Arena to take on the defending SIJHL champion Minnesota Wilderness in a rematch of last year’s seven-game slugfest for the Bill Salonen Cup.
After a scoreless opening frame, the Wilderness’ quick-strike offence exploded for four goals in the second period en route to a 5-2 triumph.
“I thought the first period was good as we created some good offensive chances and I thought we played more competitively than we did on Wednesday, which was something that we had been talking about,” Strachan noted.
“But like Wednesday, we made a lot of bad decisions and we turned the puck over too many times, which allowed them to come back down on us.
“When you do that against a speedy offensive team like the Wilderness, they are going to take advantage,” he warned.
Leading the Wilderness here Friday night was second-year forward Jeremy Johnson, the 19-year-old from West Fargo, N.D. who scored once and also added a pair of assists.
“Our plan was to just go out playing hard and hitting guys whenever we can,” Johnson noted.
“We knew that we had to come out hard and play a whole game here, as we didn’t play all that well against Dryden last week and we wanted to get our momentum back,” he stressed.
“Jeremy is the type of kid that is a good farm kid type of player,” said Wilderness head coach Rod Aldoff.
“He’s an honest players that shows up and plays hard every day, and to me, a guy like that is one of the most effective players that you can have on a team.”
Michael MacKinnon and Joseph Drapluk also scored and picked up assists for the Wilderness, with Jake Larson and Jordan Shockley both beating Lakers’ goalie Tanner Hamilton for the visitors’ other goals.
Colton Spicer and Hunter Leishman replied for the Lakers, with Leishman’s marker being his first career goal in the Junior ‘A’ ranks after playing for the Muskies last season.
“I think that Hunter is starting to grow as a player,” Strachan noted.
“He obviously still needs to work on some areas of the game, but I thought that he was moving his feet a lot more and that he was competing a lot harder than he did in his first game on Wednesday, and he was rewarded with a nice top-shelf goal,” he said.
The two teams then went back at it again Saturday night in Cloquet, where the Wilderness outshot the Lakers 48-22 en route to a 4-0 triumph.
“The biggest key to that game was some young mistakes again, and at times a lack of competitive effort,” Strachan stressed.
“The first goal that the Wilderness had was a lucky break but also a breakdown off of an end-zone draw,” he noted.
“And we pretty much gave them their second and third goals in breakdowns in a change at our bench and a bad defensive gap that allowed them to walk right in.
“And the fourth goal was a lack of urgency on our part to get back and back check to help our defence,” Strachan added.
Johnson, MacKinnon, Drapluk, and Tyler Gorniak all scored for the Wilderness while netminder JoJo Jeanetta stopped all 22 shots that came his way.
Despite being saddled with the loss, Strachan was quick to praised the performance of goalie Dustin Stevens, who made 44 saves in his first game of the season.
“Dustin was our best player in this game,” he lauded.
“He competed and fought hard to do his job, and we certainly can’t blame his effort.”
The Lakers will be looking to snag that elusive first win when they travel to Thunder Bay to take on the North Stars this Friday and Saturday.
Then the squad will be in Duluth on Sunday to clash with the Clydesdales.
“We will be doing more repetitions on our defensive situations in practice this week heading into those games, as that is something that the entire team needs to work on,” Strachan said.
“Thunder Bay has a good hockey team, especially with the veterans that they have returning, and they will make us work hard for everything in order to earn a victory.
“Duluth is a good-skating and hard-working team from what I hear, so it’s not going to be an easy weekend for us by any means,” he warned.
