Dan Falloon
The Fort Frances Lakers are looking to Team Canada’s dramatic 3-2 overtime win over the United States in Sunday’s Olympic gold-medal game as inspiration heading into their first-round playoff series with the K&A Wolverines of Thunder Bay.
Head coach Wayne Strachan said his team will look to garner any sort of inspiration from the gold-medal run that captured the nation, which he planned to tie it into his speech before Game 1 tonight in the Lakehead.
“We’re going to try to maybe influence them through the Canadian Olympic team winning the gold medal, maybe playing a few songs that inspired them to get the job done,” noted Strachan.
“We’re going to look toward something like that to see if it works, and if it doesn’t, we’ll look at other methods,” he reasoned.
“But if it does, we’ll probably run with it and see how far it takes us.”
Strachan felt his team’s mental preparation has been lacking in recent games, which saw the Lakers drop five-straight to finish the regular season. And he said that missing focus was a major factor in the slump.
“Right now, we’re gearing up for Wednesday night,” he stressed. “We know it’s a huge game, and maybe the most important game to get the ball rolling.
“We’re going in there with every intention of winning that hockey game, and that’s going to be our mindset.
“There’s nothing else we’re going to be thinking about until the puck drops on Wednesday night,” Strachan vowed.
The Lakers, like the Canadian men’s squad, know a little something about slow starts. The Canadians felt it on a game-to-game level given the team didn’t mould together until its fifth game—a 7-3 pounding of the Russian juggernaut.
Fort Frances, on the other hand, is feeling it on a period-to-period basis. And Friday night’s regular-season finale—a 4-2 loss to the host Sioux Lookout Flyers—was a perfect example.
The Flyers tallied twice in the first 3:37 of the game on goals by Nathan Brown and Adam Wensley as Sioux Lookout outshot the Lakers 13-3 in the opening period.
“We didn’t come out in the first period, and that’s alarming because the first period [tonight] is going to be huge,” Strachan warned.
But the Lakers knew they could come back after having won four of their five previous match-ups with the Flyers.
“We knew we could play with them. We’ve had success in the last month,” Strachan noted.
Fort Frances eventually fought back to tie the score at 2-2 as Byron Katapaytuk and Justin Erhart found the twine, but never grabbed the lead.
The Flyers notched a late power-play goal by Clayton Lewis at 17:09 of the third before Darren Turner iced the 4-2 victory with an empty-netter.
Lakers’ goalie Jameson Shortreed made 41 saves while his counterpart, Peter Emery, blocked 21 for Sioux Lookout.
The Lakers, meanwhile, also are looking to exact some revenge on K&A, who escaped with 3-2 and 5-4 wins here Feb. 19 and 20, killing any chance the Lakers had of nabbing fourth place and home-ice advantage in the opening series.
Those two losses also widened the gap in the regular-season series, which K&A won 8-4, including an overtime win.
“In our minds, we have to get a little redemption,” challenged Strachan. “They came in and swept us in our own rink, which is tough to take.
“It’s tough to lose those one-goal games,” he added. “It definitely hurt us in the standings and the possibility of securing home ice for this series.
“They [the Wolverines] just wanted those games more and they outworked us when they had to.”
Still, Strachan believes his squad has what it takes to win the best-of-seven series from the Wolverines if they just stick to the game plan.
“In practice, we’ve focused a lot on one-on-one battles along the boards, and I think for our team to be successful, we have to dominate this series down low in both ends of the rink,” Strachan remarked.
“If we go in focused and ready to play, we can play with them and beat them,” he stressed.
As well, Strachan noted the Wolverines’ home-ice advantage may not be particularly pronounced given the teams split the six games played in Thunder Bay during the regular season.
“They don’t get nearly the crowds we do, so that shouldn’t be a factor in it,” he argued. “If we go there and play like we have throughout the season, we give ourselves a great opportunity to steal a game, or best scenario both games.
“We’ll know come a couple days, I guess.”
Strachan is taking the attitude that the regular season now has no bearing on what can happen in the coming games, but still will present a significant challenge to the Lakers.
“We have to put the regular season in the past now. It’s basically a new season,” he said. “The playoffs are a whole different season in itself, and it’s a lot harder.
“It seems like it’s more intense, and the players just rise to being in the playoffs.”
In related news, the Lakers held their awards banquet here Saturday night.
Shortreed was the big winner, capturing team MVP and fan choice awards.
Defencemen Cody Hasbargen and Ryan Presthus took home top defenceman and most improved player honours, respectively.
The other winners were captain Tyler Stevenson (most gentlemanly), Tim Hennessey (most dedicated), and Byron Katapaytuk (rookie of the year).
