Jamie Mountain
Well, you can’t say it wasn’t entertaining.
Despite a valiant comeback effort, the Fort Frances Lakers dropped their 11th-straight game with a 7-6 shootout loss to the last-place Minnesota Iron Rangers last night at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Jaedin Ness scored twice for the Lakers (6-19-1-2) in a losing cause.
Eli Kinsman tallied once and added four assists while Mark Sanchez recorded a hat trick as part of a four-point night for the Iron Rangers (3-23-1-2).
Joel Nagy netted his first two SIJHL goals at 6:26 and 11:02 to stake the visitors to an early first-period lead.
Ian Jarvis deflected a point-shot past Iron Rangers’ goalie Tyler Thompson at 15:43, on a power play, to trim the lead to 2-1 heading into the second.
Sanchez then scored at 11:12 and 18:15 to increase the visitors’ lead to 4-1.
Hunter Buzzi cut the deficit in half with 1:08 left in the second.
Ness buried his first of the night 1:22 into the third on an impressive unassisted effort to make it 4-3.
Sanchez then capped his hat trick with a marker at 5:43 to give the Iron Rangers a two-goal lead.
That didn’t last long, however, as the Lakers struck with back-to-back tallies by Anthony Atonelli (7:19) and Adam Withers (10:47) to tie it at 5-5.
Kinsman put Minnesota ahead once again at 12:12 on a feed from Clayton Brown and Anthony Beltrame.
But with time ticking down and another loss staring them in the face, Lakers’ captain Julian Uhryniuk set up Ness for his second goal of the night with just 16 seconds to go to force overtime.
After the extra period solved nothing, the game moved to a shootout.
Brown scored for the Iron Rangers while the Lakers were skunked on all three of their attempts.
Brett Akins took the loss between the pipes, finishing with 21 saves, while Thompson had 28 in earning the win.
Shots on goal favoured Fort Frances by a 34-27 margin.
The Lakers went 2-for-3 with the man-advantage while the Iron Rangers were 0-2.
The Thief River Falls Norskies continue to lead the SIJHL standings with a 28-1-0-0 record.
The Dryden GM Ice Dogs (20-3-5-1) currently occupy second place.
The Thunder Bay North Stars (16-10-3-0) are in third while the English River Miners (13-12-0-3) sit in fourth spot.
Fort Frances remains in fifth place, with Minnesota still residing in the basement.
The Lakers return to action Saturday night when they face the Ice Dogs in Dryden for the first of back-to-back games there.
The second one goes Monday night.
