Defensive woes cost Canadians at tournament

It’s a long-standing sports adage—defence wins championships.
Well, the Fort Frances Canadians struggled with their defensive zone coverage and, as a result, were eliminated in the semi-finals of the consolation bracket at a 16-team tournament in Wayzata, Mn. over the weekend.
“Basically we struggled in our own end,” Canadians’ head coach Dave Egan remarked.
“We got caught being out of position a couple of times and our mistakes cost us, but that’s something we’re going to work on this week and get corrected,” he added.
The Canadians’ defensive struggles were compounded by the fact they faced some stiff competition at the three-day tournament.
Each of the three teams they squared off against—Burnsville, Moundsview, and host Wayzata—were able to capitalize on their scoring chances as they occurred.
While not searching for excuses, Egan did say the poor health of several of his players may have been a contributing factor in their poor defensive showing.
Already without defenceman Will Morrisseau (out indefinitely with a bout of mononucleosis), several Canadians’ players were battling the effects of bronchitis.
“Even though they played, you could tell they were under the weather,” Egan noted.
Despite the less-than-ideal results, Egan took some solace in the fact his team learned some valuable lessons concerning the type of effort required to win at that level.
“We’re going to learn when we play competition like that that it’s a good, hard-skating game,” he said. “It’s too our benefit.
“Even though we would have liked to win the championship, we learned lots and we’ll take it to the next tournament.”
The Canadians fell behind 2-0 through two periods against Burnsville in their opening game Friday night.
Captain George Ossachuk cut the deficit to one in the third period, assisted by Irvin Lockman and Kyle Herr, but it was not enough as Burnsville earned the 2-1 victory.
That loss relegated the Canadians to the ‘B’ division, where they rebounded well against Moundsview in their second game Saturday night.
After falling behind 1-0, the Canadians sprung to life with four unanswered goals over the next 40 minutes.
Lockman started the offensive barrage, converting a Matt Beck pass to tie the game at 1-1.
Josh Scott gave the Canadians their first lead of the tournament with just over a minute-and-a-half left in the first period while on the power play,
assisted by Dayton Brown and Tyler Harris.
The Canadians scored their second goal with the man advantage late in the second period when Jared Baker tallied to give Fort Frances a 3-1 lead heading into the second intermission.
Herr drew the assist.
The Canadians’ offensive flurry ended midway through the third period in the same manner it had begun—with Beck assisting on a goal.
This time, however, it was Herr who was the beneficiary, netting a goal to pick up his second point of the night.
Moundsview scored with just over five minutes to go in regulation time but it was a case of too little, too late as the Canadians skated to a 4-2 win and earned a spot in the consolation semi-finals.
Once again, the Canadians fell behind early—this time 3-0—in their semi-final match-up against the host Wayzata Jr. Gold squad.
Ossachuk cut the deficit to two goals early in the second period, scoring a power-play marker assisted by Herr and Beck.
The Canadians then pulled to within a goal just over a minute later when Beck converted a Lockman pass to make it 3-2.
After Wayzata restored their two-goal advantage, Beck tallied for the second time in the period to pull the Canadians back to within a goal.
Herr and Brown assisted on the play.
But that was as close as they’d come as Wayzata scored three unanswered goals over the final period-and-a-half to cruise to the 7-3 victory—eliminating the Canadians from further contention.
“They [Wayzata] came out of the game hard,” Egan said afterwards. “We stayed with them early, but they built a pretty substantial lead and we couldn’t catch them.”
The Canadians see their next game action this Saturday (Jan. 20) when they host the Eveleth-Gilbert Golden Bears’ junior varsity squad at 1 p.m. at the ’52 Canadians Arena.