Lucas Punkari
The race for second place in the SIJHL standings got even more tight yesterday evening, as the Fort Frances Lakers were edged out on the road by a score of 4-3 to the Dryden Ice Dogs.
With the loss, the Lakers are now only three points ahead of the Thunder Bay North Stars for the second spot in the league table with 67 points, while the Ice Dogs sit only five points back.
“Early on, we didn’t have the start that we needed, but in the second and third periods, the offense really started to take over after we had a really good opening shift in the second from Byron Katapaytuk’s line,” said Lakers head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“Once we got up on them though in the third, we made a couple of defensive mistakes that cost us the game. So while all in all we played pretty good in the last two periods, it wasn’t up to the level that we needed in order to come away with the win,” he added.
The Lakers held a 3-2 lead just past the six minute mark of the third period, before Dallas Crum scored his second goal of the night to tie things up for the Ice Dogs just seconds after they fell behind. Then, with just over a minute left to go on the clock, Luke Kasteel found the back of the net for the first time this season to give the Ice Dogs the victory.
“On that last goal they were cycling the puck around and then there were two rebounds that weren’t cleared away,” Strachan explained.
“That resulted in one of our forwards being out of position, which led to their guy coming in unmarked to score the winner.”
Lakers captain Tyler Stevenson moved back into a tie for the SIJHL goal scoring lead in the loss, as he picked up his first hat trick of the season to put his season total at 36 markers, matching him with Wisconsin Wilderness sniper Keith Tessin.
“That was the first time that we had paired him (Tyler) up with Blake Boaz and Jon Sinclair this season, and they had a really good chemistry,” Strachan explained.
“He was one of our players that was really into the game, and like I’ve said in the past, he’s very gifted around the net which was what we saw again last night,” Strachan added.
The Lakers will be looking to bounce back tonight at the Ice for Kids Arena here at 7:30 p.m., as the North Stars come to town for what is being billed as “RBC Night” at the arena.
After the team holds their annual awards banquet tomorrow evening at the Adventure Inn, the Lakers will have another tough test on home ice on Saturday when the SIJHL regular-season champion Wilderness come to town for a 7:30 p.m. tilt.
