Dan Falloon
The Fort Frances Lakers opened their home-and-home series with the Dryden Ice Dogs with a little extra motivation to make off with a win.
The second-place Ice Dogs (36-8-5) were the only team the Lakers (14-32-5) hadn’t beaten entering the final week of the regular season.
But the trend continued for the Lakers as the Ice Dogs won 3-0 here on Tuesday night and then 5-3 in Dryden last night.
The Lakers had come close this season, taking three of the games to overtime, but just couldn’t find the magic bullet against the Ice Dogs.
On Tuesday night, the Ice Dogs opened the scoring at 4:20 of the first when Chad Liley’s backhand fluttered past Lakers’ goalie Jameson Shortreed stick side.
The Lakers’ best chances to score all game came near the end of the period as Justin Erhart was stoned on a breakaway by Dryden goalie Josh Baker.
Then in the final minute, Baker shut down Tyler Stevenson, who tried to jam a puck home during a Lakers’ power play.
“In the first, we were just careless about what we were doing,” bemoaned Lakers’ head coach Wayne Strachan.
“We were just throwing the puck away and making bad decisions with the puck.
“We didn’t get any flow or any pressure in their zone,” he noted.
Dryden added another in the second as the Lakers gave up a 2-on-1 to a pair of speedy Ice Dogs. Puck carrier Brenden Church opted to shoot, wiring a shot underneath Shortreed’s arm for his 10th of the season.
Strachan felt his team showed flashes in the second, but couldn’t get anything past Baker.
“We were a little bit more aggressive. We got our cycle going,” he recalled. “We carried the play more often than not.”
Liley padded his goal total with his second of the game with 12 seconds to go in the third—one-timing a feed from Ben McLellan off the post and past Shortreed to secure the 3-0 win.
Shortreed stopped 26 shots while Baker stopped all 17 shots he faced to post his third shutout of the season.
Fort Frances’ offence struggled to put much pressure for much of the game, but the defence held the Ice Dogs’ offence relatively in check.
The 29 shots allowed were the second-fewest since Jan. 26 when Dryden directed 21 shots at Shortreed in a 4-3 win.
Three of the Lakers’ last seven losses have been by shutout, with the team being held to 17 shots or fewer in four of those defeats.
“Neither of us really got too many chances,” noted Strachan. “They just capitalized on theirs and we didn’t.”
The offence was a bit more dialed in last night in Dryden, firing off 32 shots compared to the Ice Dogs’ 42.
But it was all Dryden in the first as they outshot the Lakers 18-6 to jump out to a 3-0 lead.
Kyle Heck opened the scoring at 5:45 before Kevin Burton and Church scored 1:51 apart later in the frame.
Burton’s marker came shorthanded—the third such goal the Lakers had yielded in the past three games.
Fort Frances roared back to tie the game in the second, with Blake Boaz’s ninth of the year getting the Lakers on the board at 2:04.
Erhart also put up his ninth on the power play at 9:07, with Mike Jourdain knotting things with his eighth at the 16-minute mark.
But the tie was short-lived as Dryden’s B.J. McClellan responded 50 seconds, then Tanner Harms scored early in the third to round out the scoring.
Shortreed made 37 saves last night while Baker turned aside 29.
The Lakers will wrap up the regular season tomorrow night in Sioux Lookout, then will host their annual awards banquet Saturday night at the Adventure Inn.
The Flyers are tied for third place with the K&A Wolverines at 19-27-5, but the Flyers won the season series 7-5, giving them the tiebreaker.
K&A rounds out its schedule against first-place Fort William tonight.
The Lakers will face whichever team ends up in fourth place in the first round of the SIJHL playoffs.
