Joey Payeur
The physical beatdown dished out by a long season has left the Fort Frances Lakers getting beat up on the scoreboard more often than not.
A pair of weekend losses have the three-time defending SIJHL champs virtually destined to finish in fifth place and start their first-round “Survivor Series” post-season matchup on the road.
After edging the host Minnesota Iron Rangers 5-4 last Wednesday, the Lakers returned to Hoyt Lakes just two nights later and found themselves the unwanted answer to a trivia question regarding the end of longest franchise losing streaks.
The Iron Rangers had dropped 22-straight games but banded together Friday night for what likely was the highlight win of their season in doubling the Lakers 4-2.
That letdown spilled over into Saturday’s night game here, when the Lakers (23-23-2-4) only trailed 2-1 after the second period to the league-leading Dryden GM Ice Dogs but then gave up four goals to lose 6-1.
The Lakers now are seven points behind the fourth-place Thief River Falls Norskies (27-19-2-3, 59), with four games remaining in the regular-season schedule.
One more Norskies’ win–or a Fort Frances loss–will lock the Lakers into fifth place and ensure whomever ends up in fourth place among the Norskies, Thunder Bay North Stars, and English River Miners will have home-ice advantage in the 4th vs. 5th opening playoff series.
“If we had the effort we did Saturday on Friday, I would have taken it,” said Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“It’s not an excuse, as we need to be better, but playing game in and game out shorthanded is not helping our fatigue factor,” he noted.
“A lot of guys, especially our defencemen, are logging a great deal of minutes and in the third, you could see that with us having played three games in four nights.”
Strachan said defenceman Matt Cheetham (knee) may be done for the season while forward Dawson Waddell (knee) has no timetable for his return as he rehabilitates at home in Winnipeg.
Leading scorer Jared Virtanen’s shoulder injury still is at least two-three weeks away from being healed while defenceman Mark Richter and goalie Brandon Bodnar are listed as week-to-week (upper-body injuries).
“Our mental focus was just not there,” Strachan said about Saturday’s game against Dryden.
“Through the first two periods, I do not think we were outplayed,” he stressed.
“In the first, we had some opportunities to capitalize on and didn’t.
“I thought we played a good second and battled to get back in the game, but we need to build off that,” he added.
“It seems every time we compliment them on good things, we take a step backwards in our play the next period.”
Such was the case in the third when the Ice Dogs (41-7-4) broke open a 2-1 game with four unanswered goals against Lakers’ netminder Jessie Heisz, who was playing for the second-straight night with Bodnar dressed as the backup but unable to play due to injury.
“In the third, we need the third goal stopped. And not pointing fingers but goals like that hurt the morale of the bench,” Strachan said about Sam Marit’s marker at 3:22.
“The fourth goal [Kristopher Hamlin at 8:04], we have a mismatch in line combinations and I’ll take the blame, but I felt we needed to give the top lines a rest coming off the power play then,” he reasoned.
“The fifth goal [Cory Dennis at 9:05] is a result of not smart penalties in our end and the sixth goal [Marit at 18:06] needs to be stopped.
“I am not going to claim to be an expert on teaching goaltending, but number-one focus and being ready to play needs to be better,” Strachan conceded.
“In a game of that magnitude, our goalie needs to be one of our, if not the best player on the ice for us,” he noted.
“We as a team are going to need our goalie to win us a game or two in the playoffs if we are going to make any noise in trying to win a championship,” Strachan said.
“I realize the outcome seems bad, but I thought for the most part we battled hard against them.”
Hamlin and Garrett Graham scored in the first period while Dylan Kooner had the Lakers’ only goal at 7:07 of the second.
Against Minnesota on Friday, Matt Tustin put the Lakers up 1-0 at 5:24 of the first.
But the Iron Rangers responded with three-straight goals by Korey Muzzy (power play) and Eli Kinsman in the first, and then Jack Stensgard in the second.
Maverick Lynes made it a one-goal game with a power-play goal at 7:33, then the Lakers threw everything at Minnesota goalie Sean Angle in the third period.
But Angle stopped all 20 shots fired his way in the frame while Muzzy added the insurance goal into the empty net with 34 seconds to go.
“It’s definitely tough, especially when you need these points and it’s a game you should win,” said Strachan.
“What makes it tougher is we handed them the opportunity to win in the first 30 minutes of play with not competing to our capability,” he added.
“Not to take anything away from [the Iron Rangers]–they worked hard and earned the win.
“In the end, Angle is the difference,” said Strachan. “He made some big key saves on our power-play opportunities and was focused.
“If we put in the effort we did in the third and latter part of the second for the entire game, we may be talking about a different outcome,” he noted.
Strachan, meanwhile, wasn’t putting too much stock into the idea that preparing for the playoffs was made more simple by already knowing the team’s place in the standings.
“I don’t feel there is a benefit to knowing,” he remarked.
“Bottom line is we need to hopefully get healthy for a chance to have a stronger lineup.
“We need some consistency over a period of time in our practice habits and game play,” Strachan reiterated.
“Right now, it is tough in practice with the short number of bodies from injury and sickness to go through system work as it’s taxing on the players right now having played 52 games and having went through some 90-100 practices.
“We have to make ourselves accountable,” he insisted. “We need pride in our defensive game and we need certain players to raise their level of play to help the cause.
“We will prepare in working on our systems and tweaking things once we know our [playoff] opponent.”
The Lakers will face the North Stars in a two-game series in Thunder Bay this Friday and Saturday.
Then they’ll host Dryden on Tuesday (March 14) at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
