Joey Payeur
The Fort Frances Lakers are at an all-time high, but the altitude isn’t having any adverse effects so far.
The Lakers earned their 12th-straight victory Saturday night—doubling the English River Miners 4-2 in Ear Falls.
Combined with a 6-0 shutout of the host Dryden Ice Dogs last Wednesday, Fort Frances (13-1-0-1) did enough to move up one place to No. 4 in the Canadian Junior ‘A’ Hockey League top 20 rankings released Monday.
That makes it three-straight weeks the Lakers have set a new franchise record for their placement in the rankings.
The newly-formed trio of Bryce Lipinski, Colton Spicer, and Kevin Kurm packed a solid punch against a Miners’ team that’s much improved from the group that lost 12-2 here in their last meeting on the second day of the SIJHL season.
“These three I have felt have been clicking well together the last two games and, out of any of the new lines, have gelled the quickest,” lauded Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“They all have speed, skill, and offensive awareness.
“What I like about the three of them is they all go to the net and find holes for one another to create scoring chances,” he noted.
“In our own end, they have been coming back to support our defence and transitioning quickly on the attack.”
The Lakers outshot the Miners 58-18 on Saturday night, with Greg Harney turning in a 54-save effort in defeat although Strachan believed it still was a more difficult team to play the second time around.
“We skated in the ’52 [Canadians] Arena to simulate a similar rink size [to English River’s] and adjusted our game in the necessary means to have a solid attack against them,” Strachan remarked.
“For the most part, we were system strong and, again, I felt [Harney] was the first star of the game.”
Lipinski (two power-play goals and an assist), Spicer (three assists), and Kurm (a goal and an assist) teamed up for eight points against the Miners, who had former Lakers’ defenceman Ben Smaha in the lineup against the team that sent him and forward Bryson Jasper to English River in exchange for Spicer back on Oct. 16.
Jasper, who has seven points in five games with the Miners, was not in the lineup and reportedly has asked to be traded.
Lipinski scored the first of his two power-play goals at 2:08 of the first, with Kellen MacBlain responding for the Miners at 6:35.
Kurm made good with the man advantage at 18:10 for his sixth of the year, then Lyndon Lipinski netted his seventh just 12 seconds into the middle stanza for the only goal of the period and a 3-1 lead.
John Morales sparked hope for the Miners (4-11-1) with his goal 6:05 into the third to draw English River to within one.
But Bryce Lipinski notched his ninth of the season at 13:44 to seal the win.
Jordan Cartney made 16 saves to improve to 6-1 on the season. That, combined with his 31-save shutout in Dryden, made him this week’s choice as the SIJHL Pizza Hut Player of the Week.
The 19-year-old product of Calgary leads the league in goals against average (1.98) and save percentage (.935), and has the only shutout in the SIJHL so far this season.
Cam Gobeil, meanwhile, replaced Hunter Leishman at the forward position in his first game in two weeks, with Strachan citing Leishman’s last game as a main reason for the switch.
“The staff felt Hunter struggled in Dryden, and we felt it was a good opportunity to get Cam into the lineup and in game action,” he explained.
“We haven’t flirted with many changes as we have been having success, but we felt it was a good chance to get Cam and Aaron Wesley-Chisel into the lineup.”
Leishman has just one assist in the past five games after scoring in four-straight contests.
Wesley-Chisel is back in the lineup given fellow blueliner John Dora (upper-body injury) is expected to miss at least another week of action.
Last Wednesday against the Ice Dogs (sitting at 9-9 going into last night’s game against the Thunder Bay North Stars), the Lakers put the game out of reach with a five-goal second period, including four in a span of 4:10.
Kurm had the lone goal of the first before Mason Meyer, Bryce Lipinski, and captain Patrick Sofer chased Dryden starter Shayne Dietl to the bench.
Robert Kopytek-MacKenzie took over and promptly was beaten by Spicer and Torrin Grange before the end of the period.
Dietl finished with 24 saves on 28 shots while Kopytek-MacKenzie turned aside 14 out of 16.
The Lakers, who are seven points up on second-place Thunder Bay (9-1-0-2), with the Stars holding three games in hand, travelled to Spooner last night to face the last-place Wisconsin Wilderness (1-11).
Fort Frances was without Grange for that game after the forward was suspended one game after receiving a checking from behind minor and game misconduct with 12 seconds left in the third Saturday night.
The Lakers then return home for a game tomorrow night against the Ice Dogs at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
