Joey Payeur
After dominating the landscape in recent seasons, the Fort Frances Lakers finally got to find out how the rest of the SIJHL has felt.
The Dryden GM Ice Dogs ripped the crown off the head of the three-time defending SIJHL champs by sweeping their best-of-seven semi-final series in four-straight games–the final one occurring last Tuesday night in a 2-1 overtime win at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Derek McPhail, long a thorn in the Lakers’ side, made his last game against the Fort a memorable one.
The 20-year-old notched the game-winner from the right side of the net with 41.1 seconds left in the extra session after a perfect no-look backhand pass by Kristopher Hamlin.
“It’s a huge weight off my chest,” an exhausted yet exhilarated McPhail said after ending not only the Lakers’ championship dynasty, but also their string of four-straight playoff eliminations of the Ice Dogs, including the last two SIJHL finals.
“I’ve come to battle these guys for the last three, four, I don’t even know how many years,” he noted.
“It feels good.”
The Ice Dogs advanced to the SIJHL final against the English River Miners, who eliminated the Thunder Bay North Stars in five games after a 5-4 overtime win Saturday in Thunder Bay.
Fort Frances can’t call the semi-final outcome a fluke as Dryden won 12-of-14 meetings between the regular season and playoffs this season.
“To look at it now, it’s probably not a surprise it was a sweep,” admitted Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan, whose team topped the regular-season standings the last three years but fell to fifth this season at 24-25-3-4–a whopping 39 points behind the first-place Ice Dogs (45-7-4).
“For sure, at the start of the series, I thought we could gut out a win or two and put some pressure on them, but the cards didn’t line up,” he noted.
Forward Tanner Garnham said it certainly was a different feeling coming into the playoffs as the underdog this season.
“We put all our effort out there,” stressed Garnham, whose team only could manage one goal in each of the last three games after scoring four in Game 1’s 6-4 loss.
“But it was an eye-opener for us,” he conceded. “We lost some important guys from last year like [Dylan] Robertson, the Rosses [Davis and Nolan], and [Nick] Minerva.
“We still all came together to win at any cost.
“We were very limited in our skill level and still prevailed in the ‘Survivor Series’ [against the Thief River Falls Norskies],” Garnham noted.
Garnham said the team’s ability to stay competitive was tested greatly after the loss of assistant general manager and coach Grant Perreault to cancer on April 1–just hours before Game 3 of the semi-final.
“It’s been such an emotional roller-coaster these last few days,” he remarked.
“There was some ‘win-one-for-Grant’ talk before the game tonight [April 1],” Garnham noted. “We still thought we could come back in the series if we could get that first win.”
The Ice Dogs refused to let that happen, although the Lakers made them work for it harder in the clinching game than at any other time in the series.
Brandon Bodnar rebounded from a rough outing in Game 3’s 5-1 loss, when he was pulled less than nine minutes into the first period after giving up three goals, as he kept the Lakers even through 20 minutes despite being outshot 13-6.
Nic Noseworthy broke the deadlock at 2:49 of the second when his long wrist shot from the right point eluded Bodnar high to the stick side.
Dryden’s aggressive forechecking seemed to have the Lakers at a loss on how to sustain any extended pressure in the Ice Dogs’ zone.
But captain Dylan Kooner, one of six Lakers facing the end of their junior eligibility, wasn’t letting his squad go down without a fight.
Kooner took a pass from Dawson Waddell and motored down the right wing to create just enough separation between himself and his defender to unleash a howitzer that zipped past Ice Dogs’ goalie Patrick Zubick at 5:51 of the third for the tying goal.
The lead almost was theirs for the taking soon after–only to have the Lakers come up short by the smallest of margins.
Maverick Lynes’ shot was blocked by Zubick but bounced off his equipment, with the puck ending up standing on end right on the goalline.
Austin Petrie was in the neighbourhood and lunged to try and tap it home, but Jacen Bracko came to Zubick’s rescue at the last second and swept the puck out of the goal crease before it was too late.
Dryden’s penalty-killing was a vital part of its series win, holding the Lakers to just 2-for-27 with the man-advantage, including none in its last 10 tries spanning the final five-and-a-half periods of action.
“We definitely had our chances to get back into games through the power play,” noted Strachan.
“But once we got into their zone, their pressure rattled us.”
Minutes after McPhail ended the Lakers’ season, Strachan reflected on his squad’s title run and the challenge that lies ahead to get back to that level.
“It’s tough to swallow when you’ve had the success we’ve had the last few years,” he admitted.
“You look back at our season and the playoffs, and we had a number of bodies in and out of the lineup,” noted Strachan, who was without veteran forward Julian Uhryniuk (concussion) for the entire semi-final, as well as defenceman Matt Cheetham (knee).
“[But] that’s how hockey is,” he reasoned. “You live and learn from this year, and get ready to come back strong next year.”
