Joey Payeur
Fort Frances Lakers’ head coach Wayne Strachan has some ready-made kindling for heating the fireplace when the weather turned cold on Saturday.
Namely, the video recording of his team’s biggest loss of the season the previous night—a 9-2 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Iron Rangers down in Hoyt Lakes.
“One of those games you don’t want to think about,” said Strachan, who had a front-row view of the debacle from his head coach’s perch on the bench as the Lakers’ six-game winning streak abruptly ended at the hands of the Iron Rangers (12-7-3), who have now won five-straight.
“We didn’t have much jam,” he noted. “We didn’t make smart decisions with or without the puck.
“The Iron Rangers played well,” Strachan added. “They had a game plan and stuck to it.
“It’s nothing we will panic about,” stressed Strachan. “We will continue to grow our game.
“I believe the [10-day] layoff, and coming back and playing three games in four nights, had an effect on our game Friday.”
The loss also dropped the Lakers (16-6-1) down three spots to No. 16 in the Canadian Junior Hockey League top-20 rankings.
The Iron Rangers (12-7-3) had lost its last three meetings with the Lakers, and had won only two of six games in the season series before Friday night.
None of that mattered once the puck dropped, though.
Matt O’Dea and Evan Bennett made it 2-0 before the midway mark of the first period, which led Strachan to yank starting goalie Ryan Ferguson in favour of Devin Tappenden.
But the change had little impact as Evan Erickson beat Tappenden before the first intermission.
The second period saw Minnesota erupt for five more goals.
Jason Reynolds, already with two assists in the first, added another helper on O’Dea’s second of the game.
Former Laker Alex Rezansoff then bulged the twine in his first game against his old team following the Nov. 21 trade that saw him and defenceman Max Kaercher head south for a pair of player development fees.
Just over a minute later, it was Reynolds’ turn to get into the goal column on the power-play.
He then set up Erickson, with Strachan pulling Tappenden and sending Ferguson back on the ice.
Noah Anderson (power play) then found the target for a jaw-dropping 8-0 advantage against the defending SIJHL champs entering the third period.
Gordon Campbell finally broke through against Iron Rangers’ goalie Adam Ranck.
But Rezansoff came back to haunt his former team again just 44 seconds later to make it 9-1.
Dylan Robertson later closed out the scoring with his first goal as a Laker.
“Well, I definitely wasn’t expecting the result that happened,” admitted Strachan.
“But the Iron Rangers are a good team, one of the best in the league, and they capitalized on all of our breakdowns,” he noted.
“I thought we may have rebounded some in the second period, but the night just kept getting uglier and uglier through that period,” Strachan added.
“We will chalk it up to an experience we need to learn from and move on to better ourselves as a hockey team.”
The Lakers extended their winning streak to six games with a pair of wins earlier in the week.
The squad dumped the Dryden GM Ice Dogs 7-4 here last Tuesday before earning a 5-3 road win over the Thunder Bay North Stars the following night.
The Lakers faced the Ice Dogs again here last night (the outcome was unavailable by press time).
Fort Frances then continues its homestand this Friday and Saturday with a two-game series against the English River Miners (4-17-2).
Both games get underway at 7:30 p.m.
