Lucas Punkari
For two periods here Tuesday night, the Fort Frances Lakers played the way head coach Wayne Strachan wanted them to.
But that all changed in the third as the Lakers saw a 4-1 lead evaporate en route to a 5-4 loss to Dryden Ice Dogs in their second-last game of the SIJHL regular season.
“I’m kind of at a loss for words right now,” Strachan said afterwards.
“In the first two periods we were cycling the puck and doing all of the simple things, and that was helping us win the game,” he noted.
“But in the third we came out flat, they [Dryden] poured it on, and the final result everyone knows now,” Strachan added.
Rookie forward Dallas Allaire scored on a rebound with just over two-and-a-half minutes left to give Dryden the win.
“We just told the guys to get pucks on net because you never know what can happen,” said Ice Dogs’ coach Clint Mylymok.
“A lot of the top players in the NHL will tell you that they just want to get pucks to the net because no one ever panics when the puck is in a corner,” he noted.
“Once it gets out front, everyone starts to panic at all levels of hockey, and we were able to work that in our favour in the final minutes,” Mylymok said.
Ice Dogs’ captain Jon Mitchell led the visitors with a goal and two assists while Lakers’ forward Blake Boaz, who had won the SIJHL’s best defensive forward award earlier in the day, netted a pair of goals in a losing cause.
Tyler Stevenson and Ryan Wildman also scored for the Lakers, who suffered their second-straight defeat.
Tuesday’s setback, coupled with a 6-3 victory by the Thunder Bay North Stars over the Duluth Clydesdales last night, has the Lakers only three points up on both the North Stars and Ice Dogs for second place in the SIJHL standings.
The Lakers close out the regular season tonight in Sioux Lookout.
“This might be the difference between whether we finish in second place or if we finish in third or fourth,” Boaz noted.
“We [the team] had a talk after [Tuesday’s] game and we brought up last season, where our record wasn’t as good but come playoff time we were doing all of the little things right, which is what we have to start doing now,” he stressed.
The North Stars, meanwhile, have three games left on their schedule, including a pair with the regular-season champion Wisconsin Wilderness.
The Ice Dogs have two games left with Sioux Lookout.
