Lakers enjoying early perch atop SIJHL

Lucas Punkari

On paper, at least, it seems as if the Fort Frances Lakers are playing to the best of their abilities after their first six games of the season.
They currently occupy first place in the SIJHL standings with a 4-2 record, although head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan believes his squad has yet to truly reach what it may be capable of.
“I still believe we haven’t played to our full potential,” Strachan said.
“Obviously, the injuries of the four guys that are out right now [forwards Alex Bruess, Blake Boaz, Byron Katapaytuk, and Colton Spicer] are big losses to our lineup, and I just don’t think we’ve put a full 60 minutes into any of our games so far.
“But when we’ve been on all cylinders, we’ve been really good,” he added.
After edging the host Dryden Ice Dogs 5-4 in a shootout last Tuesday, the Lakers returned to the friendly confines of the Ice For Kids Arena on Friday night for their first regular-season glimpse at the defending Bill Salonen Cup champion Wisconsin Wilderness.
Early on, though, it was the Wilderness who dominated play as they jumped out to a 3-0 lead after two periods—and seemingly had the Lakers dead to in the water.
“After the first period of play, there wasn’t a lot of talking in the dressing room as it was a lot of unhappiness and mostly yelling on my part about how we had played,” Strachan recalled.
“We had a little bit of life, though, towards the end of the second period and in the room, I just told the guys to take some baby steps in the third period, and to work harder than them and win the period.”
The Lakers did that—and then some—in the final 20 minutes, exploding for six unanswered goals in a 6-3 triumph, which is something the 392 fans in attendance might have had a hard time believing when the period got underway.
“Whatever switch clicked with the guys, I liked it,” Strachan laughed.
“It just comes down to hard work and physical play, as during the first two periods we had a few shots here and there but no one was going to the net,” he noted.
“And in the third, the guys started to go to the net and you saw what happened.
“Should we have scored six on them? I don’t know, that’s pretty good hockey team over there,” Strachan added.
“But we’ll take it and we’ll take the win.”
As the period wore on and the Lakers kept lighting the lamp, the facial expressions on the Wilderness players, which is a younger squad than the one that dominated the SIJHL a season ago, had done a 180-degree flip from complete confidence to utter disbelief.
“Simply put, it was just inexperience in knowing how to win,” reasoned Wilderness coach Rod Aldoff.
“At the end of the day, they know what they did as a team and knowing how to win is something that they are going to learn.
“Anybody can win hockey games, but there’s a huge difference in knowing how to win consistently when you get into those grinds and we don’t know how to do that yet,” Aldoff admitted.
Two of the players who helped lead the Lakers’ third-period comeback were Connor Hady and Adam Wensley.
Both assisted on the game-tying goal by Jordan Larson, with Hady then setting up Wensley’s game-winning marker a little over 30 seconds later.
“I just went to the net hard on the tying goal and Jordan got the rebound, which he did a good job of burying,” Wensley recalled.
“On the go-ahead goal, Hady had the puck and I was just going to the slot area calling for the pass, and I just put the puck on net.
“Good things will happen when you do that,” he stressed.
“I don’t think that I have ever been part of anything like that third period, so that was pretty cool,” Hady enthused.
“I don’t know what it is but we have been good at the comebacks, though, this year, so now we just need to start getting the jump on everyone right away,” he added.
But the Wilderness gained revenge on their home ice in Spooner the following night as they edged the Lakers 2-1.
Zach Blaisdell slid the game-winner past Lakers’ goalie Tanner Hamilton only 23 seconds after Wayne Folster had tied the game up.
“Wisconsin came out flying and they were playing their game while we were a little flat in our game,” Strachan noted.
“I’m not sure the final shot count [29-14 in favour of Wisconsin] was as accurate as it could have been, but their goalie definitely saw all the shots and we just weren’t hungry enough around the net in paying the price to get the goals,” he stressed.
Still, the Lakers finished their stretch of three games in three nights on a winning note Sunday, cruising to a 6-2 win over the host Duluth Clydesdales fuelled by the five-point night from Larson.
The Fort Frances native had a goal and four assists in the victory, giving him 10 points for the entire week to earn the SIJHL’s player-of-the-week honours.
“He’s been our steadiest player throughout our first six games,” Strachan said of the rookie forward, whose 13 points leads both the team and the entire league up to this point.
“I have said from the get-go that he [Larson] has the offensive abilities to be a top player in this league, but I thought it could take a little bit of time to adjust to speed and the timing out there.
“Maybe going to [the] Team Canada West tryout helped him out with that,” Strachan reasoned.
“And even though he’s a 16-year-old, he’s been one of our leaders on the ice.”
The Lakers don’t return to action until next Tuesday night (Oct. 4), when they’ll host the expansion Iron Range Ironheads.
During the layoff, Strachan and the rest of his coaching staff will be working on a few different things to help build the Lakers into the team they would like them to be.
“Today and Thursday we are going to try and continue to work on our defence, not just our D-zone coverage but also in our backchecking and our forechecking,” he noted.
“We’ll also have dryland training throughout the week.
“And then when we go back to the ice on Monday following the weekend, we’ll do some special teams work prior to the [Iron Range] game and continue to build on our systems and what we need to improve on,” he added.
Another benefit is the fact the four injured players will have some extra time to heal up prior to that game against the Ironheads.
“We’ll know more here shortly on how Byron Katapaytuk is feeling [after suffering concussion-like symptoms after crashing hard into the boards on Friday night], and Colton Spicer [shoulder] is being evaluated, as well.
“But I think with the week off, they should both be back in the lineup for our next game,” Strachan said.
“As for Alex Bruess [facial injury] and Blake Boaz [broken wrist], they are probably about three and five weeks away, respectively, before they will hit the ice again.”