Staff
Maybe being in the national spotlight will reverse the fortunes of the Fort Frances Lakers.
The three-time defending SIJHL champs are bound for Kenora on Saturday to play the English River Miners in a game that will be part of Sportsnet’s “Hockey Day in Canada” broadcast.
The Lakers only can hope they’ll have a better brand of hockey to showcase for the country by then as their struggles continued with a 5-2 loss to the host Dryden GM Ice Dogs last night.
Fort Frances (19-20-2-4) now has dropped six-straight games (0-5-0-1), including Tuesday night’s late-game meltdown at the Ice For Kids Arena in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Miners (23-18-1-3).
The Lakers led 3-1 with less than four minutes to go on goals by Dawson Waddell, Cody Merritt, and Dylan Kooner (power play)–all assisted by Jared Virtanen, who is leading the SIJHL in that category.
But Jared Janke tied the game with goals at 16:29 and then on the power play at 18:59.
After a scoreless overtime, Sam Cirone beat Lakers’ goalie Jessie Heisz in the second round for the lone goal of the shootout.
Miners’ goalie Michael Lenko stopped Matt Tustin, Ian Jarvis, and Kooner to seal the victory.
Jamie Driedger netted English River’s other goal to put the Miners a full six points ahead of the Lakers for fourth place.
Then last night in Dryden, the first two periods belonged to the league-leading Ice Dogs (36-7-4), who were ranked ninth in the CJHL’s weekly top 20 this week.
Nic Noseworthy and SIJHL scoring leader Braeden Allkins (power play) tallied 2:05 apart in the first put the Ice Dogs up 2-0.
Dryden doubled the lead in the second on goals by Kristopher Hamlin and Jacen Bracko.
The Lakers made a comeback bid when Virtanen netted his 20th goal of the season at 4:53 before Tustin added a man-advantage marker with 1:50 to go.
But Woody Galbraith stemmed the tide by notching an empty-net goal while the Ice Dogs were shorthanded with 50 seconds left.
Ben Dennis made 26 saves to earn the win while Brandon Bodnar had 33 in a losing cause.
The Lakers welcomed back one of their many injured players Tuesday night as forward Tyler Malpass returned to action after being out since Jan. 24 with an upper-body injury.
The squad’s next home game is a special Family Day matinee on Monday at 2:30 p.m. against the Thunder Bay North Stars.
All kids 12 and under will get free admission if accompanied by an adult.
A draw also will be held in honour of Minor Hockey Week, with the winner getting a free registration in the Fort Frances Minor Hockey Association for the 2017-18 season.
