Joey Payeur
The captain of the Fort Frances Lakers’ ship has seen his team navigate some treacherous waters so far this season.
But Dylan Kooner believes he has good reason to envision smoother seas ahead for the three-time defending SIJHL champs.
The Lakers went into the two-week SIJHL holiday break in a much better mood than has been the case for most of this campaign following a pair of 4-3 wins over the visiting Minnesota Iron Rangers and English River Miners on the weekend.
“The last two weeks, we’ve had an opportunity to get eight points and we managed to get six of them,” noted Kooner, who helped set up Matt Bruinsma for the game-winning goal in overtime of Friday night’s victory and then scored the decisive goal shorthanded in the third period Saturday.
“It’s nice to get the two wins before the break,” he added.
“It was a rough start but the boys are starting to come together, although we know we have some work to do,” Kooner stressed.
“Our focus has to be to come back out after the break, move into the top three in the standings, and then win the league again.”
The Lakers went 6-3-0-1 over their past 10 games to climb back to the .500 mark (11-11-1-3) after going just 2-8-1-2 in their first 13 games to start the season.
Bruinsma said the turnaround stems from what’s been happening lately even before the puck drops.
“We get our momentum from intense practices and hitting the gym every day,” he noted.
“That helps us get consistent with our play in games.
“It’s about commitment,” Bruinsma added. “We had problems with guys staying out late and not getting home when they were supposed to.
“We need to be smart over the Christmas break now that we’ve stepped up to get back to .500.”
The 18-year-old Kingston native’s first SIJHL goal was a memorable one.
With just three assists in his first 18 games, Bruinsma hasn’t been prone to abandoning his blueline position for the chance to make any deep forays into the offensive zone—at least under normal circumstances.
“In practice, I’ve been pretty good in 3-on-3 so I thought I would give it a shot,” he smiled.
“I had the first shot, then a backhander that got stopped, but I grabbed the rebound and the third shot went in.”
Kooner and Cody Merritt (also with his first goal as a Laker) made it 2-0 after 40 minutes.
Former Laker Isaiah Olschewske cut into the lead early in the third—only to have Connor Keith blast a drive from the point that deflected off a Minnesota player in front and past goalie Jackson Nelson to seemingly put the home squad in the driver’s seat.
But Logan Froberg showed why he is the Iron Rangers’ most dangerous threat. First he tallied a power-play goal at 15:09, then rocketed a one-timer off a perfect cross-ice feed from Jack Stensgard past Lakers’ netminder Brandon Bodnar with 1:25 left to tie things up.
Bodnar made two spectacular breakaway stops in overtime to keep things even long enough for Bruinsma to win it.
That 37-save effort, along with 36 more stops against English River the following night, had Strachan in a positive mood about his goaltending situation for perhaps the first time all season.
“Brandon made some good strides forward this weekend,” lauded Strachan about Bodnar, who was 0-4 over his first 10 appearances but has now won three of his last four outings.
“He had two big saves in overtime on Friday and [Saturday], he was our best player in the first and . . . his success gave us the opportunity to have success as a team.”
Kooner opened the scoring Saturday just 22 seconds into the game on a rebound put-back.
That was followed by the unlikely 2-on-1 combination of Ian Jarvis and Matt Cheetham, who looked like Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri in their Edmonton Oilers’ heydays of the 1980s.
Jarvis made a slick move around a sliding Miners’ defender before sending it across to Cheetham, who roofed a one-timer to give his mother, Nicole, watching excitedly from the stands, an early birthday gift.
But the Miners tied the game in the second on goals by Michael Di Lullo and Trevor Pereverzoff less than four minutes apart.
Then the third period was another chance for the Lakers’ “Dynamic Duo” to prove their value.
Jared Virtanen, coming off three assists the previous night, took a pass from Kooner and powered down the left wing before slicing to the middle and unleashing a bullet that zipped past Miners’ goalie Michael Lenko only 46 seconds into the period.
The Lakers let a golden opportunity to ice the win slip away on a two-man advantage that ended without a goal, then found themselves shorthanded when Jack Bernie was whistled for slashing.
Undeterred, Virtanen stripped a Miners’ defenceman of the puck just inside the Lakers’ blueline and headmanned a pass to Kooner.
“I thought I was on a breakaway,” chuckled Kooner, who looked up to realize he was 1-on-1 against the other English River blueliner.
As such, he decided to shoot a long-range missile that beat Lenko high to the glove side to make it 4-2.
“When I saw the guy coming, I shot it and I was lucky it went in the net,” Kooner said.
But luck rarely has been a factor in the contributions by the Lakers’ top two scorers this season.
“Those two guys have been one of the main reasons we’ve had success in the last month or so,” Strachan said of Kooner and Virtanen.
“It seems every time we need a big goal, they’re there to step up and get the job done.”
Pereverzoff scored on another Miners’ power play at 12:55 to set up an exciting finish.
Sidney Gladue, English River’s leading scorer, had the best chance to tie the game but was stoned point-blank by Bodnar with 15 seconds to go.
The Lakers won both games despite going with just five defencemen all weekend.
Ryan Gazich (ribs) and Brandon Zajicek (ankle) both were out, along with forwards Domi Allan (concussion) and Austin Petrie (illness).
Forward Jaden Gustafson (illness) sat out Saturday’s game after drawing an assist Friday night.
All the players, except perhaps Zajicek, are expected to be back in action for the Lakers’ next game, which is slated for Jan. 3 at the Ice For Kids Arena against the Iron Rangers.
