Joey Payeur
Bowen Alcock is a firm believer if he is going to put the puck in the net, it might as well count for something.
Alcock zinged a screen shot past the outstretched leg of goalie Kyle Carignan to give the Fort Frances Lakers at 3:57 of overtime to give the Fort Frances Lakers a 5-4 victory over the Minnesota Iron Rangers in SIJHL action last night at Couchiching Arena.
“I beat the guy in the middle of the ice and their defence kept backing up into their goalie,” recounted the Kenora product, who was set up by blue-liners Aaron Wesley-Chisel and Gordon Campbell to end a four-game goalless drought and who now has three game-winners out of his five goals overall this season.
“I just shot through the screen, found a lane and had it go in the net.”
“I had a hunch about Bowen with the way he scores game-winners,” said general manager and head coach Wayne Strachan of the Lakers (13-5-1), who won their third straight game and moved three points up on the second-place Thunder Bay North Stars (12-5), who have two games in hand.
“He’s been big for us this year.”
Minnesota head coach Chris Walby credited Alcock with a good play, although he admitted half-jokingly about being disappointed twice on the play.
“We should have had a stick on the puck and I wish Kyle’s leg was a little longer,” mused Walby about his Rangers (7-6-3), whose team has lost six of its past seven.
Fort Frances could consider itself fortunate on several fronts to come away with the two points.
The Lakers’ power-play struggled to a 1-for-9 performance, including letting a two-minute, two-man advantage fade into oblivion in the first period.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, during that stretch, Lakers blue-liner Sam Schultz made a poor decision to pinch at the Rangers’ blue-line to allow Evan Erickson a breakaway for which he made no mistake with a series of dekes before stuffing the puck under Fort goalie Devin Tappeden at the 13-minute mark of the opening frame.
A new-look Lakers team hit the ice in the second, bulging the twine three times in the first five minutes.
Miles Nolan tucked home a rebound of AJ Kapcheck’s point shot on the power-play 58 seconds into the frame for his ninth of the year to even the affair.
Only 52 seconds later, a turnover inside the Rangers’ blue-line led to Carter Chorney getting a shot on goal which rebounded right to Schultz, who flipped it in for his second of the season and first in 10 games to make it 2-1.
The beat went on at 4:39, with Bryson Jasper getting his team-high 11th goal of the year on a cross-ice tape-to-tape pass from Lucas DeBenedet that he one-timed from in-close.
Erickson doubled his pleasure at 10:53, keeping the puck on a 2-on-1 and launching a shot that eluded Fort goalie Devin Tappenden at 17:38 to trim the lead to 3-2.
But only 11 seconds later, the lead was back to two, as Chorney charged the net and found a loose puck that he buried for his third of the year and his first after going 11 straight games without a goal.
“We weren’t strong in front of our own and we’re not clearing guys out of there like we need to,” confirmed Walby.
“In the room after the first, we had a good talk and I thought we were ready to go, but it came unglued and it came unglued quick,” he added.
The Lakers got into penalty trouble in the second, ending up two men down twice in the game and paying for it.
With Colton Spicer already going off for crosschecking, a bench minor was handed to the Lakers for unattributed comments made from the bench.
Five seconds after the end of the penalty kill, Hunter Routheau wheeled and fired from just inside the Fort blue-line, with the puck pinballing off of Alex Rezansoff’s stick and behind Tappenden at 17:38 to reduce the lead to 4-3.
Minnesota pushed forward in the third and got the break it needed at 17:13 when the Lakers’ Lucas DeBenedet fell/was taken down (depending one one’s perspective) in the Lakers’ zone. allowing Erickson to waltz in uncontested and zip the puck past Tappenden for his hat trick goal.
“That was a non-call which maybe should have been,” ventured Strachan about what happened to DeBenedet, who also picked up an unsportsmanlike penalty after being tagged with a goaltender interference call at 9:16 of the third.
“We’ve taken a lot of bad penalties since the start of the season,” admitted Strachan.
“It’s something we will discuss,” he promised tersely.
“Both times, it was not needed.”
Tappenden concluded the night with 26 saves to win back-to-back starts for the first time since Sept. 21 and only the second time this year, while Carignan blocked 22 shots.
Strachan was also busy recently adding to his team’s roster, signing forward Marco Romano.
The second Burnaby, B.C., product to join the Lakers this season, with forward Matt Vela being the other, Romano turns 20 years old today and is close to joining the lineup.
“He’s been with us a week and a half skating, but is still recovering from a car accident earlier this season where he broke his hand,” explained Strachan.
“With us not playing next week, it gives him the extra time to heal,” he added about the speedy forward whom the coach believes will add to the Fort’s already deep offensive arsenal.
Romano was a teammate with current Laker Gordon Campbell on the Junior ‘B’ Grandview Steelers of the Pacific Junior Hockey League last season after starting the year with the PJHL’s North Delta Devils before moving on to the Langley Rivermen of the British Columbia Hockey League.
He registered eight goals and nine assists for 17 points in 41 games at the three stops combined.
The Lakers head to Ear Falls on Saturday to face the English River Miners (3-12-2) before a 10-day break that ends on Nov. 25 when the Dryden GM Ice Dogs (8-7-2) pay a visit to the Ice for Kids Arena at 7:30 p.m.
