Lucas Punkari
After watching the six other SIJHL teams begin the 2012/13 campaign last Friday night, the Fort Frances Lakers will get their regular-season slate underway tonight in Hoyt Lakes versus the Minnesota Iron Rangers.
With training camp and the exhibition schedule behind them, both new and returning players alike are looking forward to finally getting started with actual games.
“I’m absolutely looking forward to it,” enthused second-year defenceman Jon Carlson.
“It’ll be great to get back into that regular-season atmosphere here, and to get things going as a team,” he noted.
“I’m really excited about it,” echoed rookie forward Hunter Leishman.
“The pre-season games were tough as I was getting used to things being a little bit more physical and faster-paced from what I was used to with the Muskies,” he reasoned.
“But I’m looking forward to getting the regular season going.”
That players’ enthusiasm also has been noticed by the Lakers’ coaching staff as head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan had more than a week to prepare his troops for tonight’s season-opener.
“I think that the start of the year usually brings a kind of nervous excitement, especially in seeing what everyone can do,” he remarked.
“We’ve had some extra time to work on some things in practice, and I’ve really liked how things have been going as the guys have had some good jump in their steps and they’ve been working hard on a lot of things.
“Everyone is starting to grasp the concepts in our systems, and we are going to be a different-looking team once the regular season starts,” Strachan pledged.
One of the biggest things Strachan has had his players work on over the last few practices has been with the team’s defensive play, which was an issue in their winless exhibition campaign.
“We’ve been working an awful lot on our defensive zone coverage, whether it’s in our actual zone or in different situations,” he explained.
“That includes 1-on-1, 2-on-2, and 3-on-3 situations, and even the transition from offence to defence on a line rush are the things that we’ve needed to improve on,” Strachan stressed.
“I think that we’ve been getting better in our defensive zone play through the work that we have been doing here in practice,” said Carlson.
“We’ve just got to get a little bit better in knowing who our man is when we are in our own zone, and also on our odd-man rushes we need to watch our pinches in getting back to help out,” he added.
Besides getting things shored up, the Lakers also have made a few roster changes, adding forward Bryce Maggrah this past week while releasing forwards Eric Miller and Tyler Elson, along with defenceman Will Becker.
“Bryce is a veteran of our league who played in Dryden for the last two seasons, and he just tried his luck out west and unfortunately didn’t make it out there,” Strachan said of the 18-year-old from Thunder Bay, who had 31 points in 44 games for the Ice Dogs last season.
“But perhaps their loss is our gain.
“In his first practice with us on Thursday, he looked a little rough around the edges,” Strachan admitted.
“But you can see that he understands the game and he brings a veteran presence with his work ethic, which we think will make him a good addition to our team.
“We think that Eric Miller will be staying with us as an affiliated player, where he will still be a part of the team with our practices and with our workouts.
“And we offered that to Tyler, but it looks like he has chosen to do something else,” noted Strachan.
Heading into tonight’s season-opener, the only Laker who is out of the lineup is forward Matt Lord, who still is recovering from a back injury suffered during the first week of practice.
“Matt’s actually returned back home to Hermantown to be treated before he comes back up here,” Strachan said.
“We’re hoping that he’ll be cleared to come back into full practice with us this week, and at the earliest, we would expect him to return into our lineup for our long road trip to Thunder Bay and Duluth during Thanksgiving weekend.”
While the coaching staff was hoping to view some video of the Iron Rangers before tonight’s game, not a lot is currently known of the Lakers’ opposition as they didn’t play a single game during the pre-season.
“We just have to expect the unexpected,” Carlson reasoned.
“I’m sure that they are going to be fielding a good team, and we will just have to come in and work harder than them,” he stressed.
The Lakers then will return to Fort Frances for their home-opener this Friday (Sept. 28) at 7:30 p.m. against the Minnesota Wilderness, which currently is scheduled to take place at the ’52 Canadians Arena.
“If the ice-making process goes according to plan and things go quickly in the Ice For Kids Arena, we’re hoping to start off the season in there,” Strachan said.
“But if we do have to play in the ’52 Canadians Arena, we’re fine with that, as well, as we’ve been playing there for almost a month now,” he noted.
The Wilderness, who moved from Spooner, Wis. to Cloquet, Mn. over the summer, then will host the Lakers on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. as they look to capture their third-straight Bill Salonen Cup.
“We’ve seen them [the Wilderness] in exhibition play and they have the same tendencies that they have had in the past, which is a fast and skilled team that is very offensive-minded,” Strachan said.
“We will have to do some things to counter their attacks and to better ourselves as we face them once again.
“And both of the games will be home-openers, so both teams will be wanting to put on a good show,” he remarked.
