Dan Falloon
The Fort Frances Lakers’ goal of finishing the regular season in third place took a major hit over the weekend.
The local Junior ‘A’ squad traded leading scorer Colton Kennedy and defenceman Conner Foster in separate deals, meaning Fort Frances will march into the playoffs without two of their top players.
The loop’s top five teams make the playoffs, with the Lakers holding a 16-point cushion for the final spot over the part-time member Wisconsin Mustangs, who have played only 13 SIJHL games this season.
Kennedy, who led the Lakers (and sat fourth in the SIJHL overall) with 24 goals and 26 assists, was shipped to the Melville Millionaires of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.
The Millionaires sport a 13-14-2 record—good for fifth place in the six-team Sherwood Conference.
They lead the Estevan Bruins by five points for the conference’s final playoff spot.
“We had been talking with Colton for some time about possibly moving on to help his hockey career and possibly have a shot about moving to a team that’ll go a little bit further in the playoffs,” noted Lakers’ head coach and GM Wayne Strachan.
“He was maybe a little surprised where he was going, and the shock of getting traded even though he knew it was going to happen.”
Strachan knew what he was giving up in Kennedy, who joined the former Fort Frances Jr. Sabres last November from the Winnipeg South Blues of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League and remained here when the Sabres morphed into the Lakers just prior to the 2009/10 season.
“We’re losing our leader, our top point-getter,” conceded Strachan.
In return, the Lakers received defenceman Sean Gallagher, an unnamed forward who had not decided yet whether he’ll report to Fort Frances, and future considerations.
If the forward does not report, the Lakers will receive a different player from the Millionaires next season.
“The reason why we did it [the trade] was we got finances to help the team,” Strachan noted. “We got a forward that, hopefully, has the ability to put points up.
“He’s young, so we’ll have him for two more years past this year, if everything goes well.”
Gallagher, meanwhile, didn’t remain a Laker for long as the team then flipped him to the Campbellton Tigers of the Maritime Junior ‘A’ Hockey League for future considerations.
The Lakers also made a trade within the league, sending Foster and future considerations to the Dryden Ice Dogs in exchange for forward Matt Caulfield and defenceman Brett Williams.
The Ice Dogs, in second place with a 26-5-4 record, find themselves eight points back of the league-leading Fort William North Stars.
Foster had paced the Lakers’ attack from the back end, tallying a goal and nine assists to lead all Fort Frances defenders.
For his part, Caulfield notched six goals and 10 assists with the Ice Dogs in a checking role. Williams, a stay-at-home defender, has a single assist on the season.
“The deal we thought came our way was getting a younger player in Brett Williams that’s going to come in and be a defensive defenceman that brings some feistiness,” noted Strachan.
“[As for] Matt Caulfield, we’re hoping he can come in and take on a big role. He’s definitely got junior experience.
“He’s a player we’ve looked at for some time now and he’s a big, strong kid, good skater,” added Strachan. “We just think that he has the potential to put more points up than being a role player like he was being played in Dryden.
“It’s an opportunity for Conner to go to one of the top teams,” Strachan continued. “He will be missed.”
While the deals will sting the Lakers in the short-term, Strachan predicts they’ll be beneficial down the road.
“In the long run, I think it’ll work out all right for us,” he said.
On the ice, the Lakers (8-22-4) lost both games in Thunder Bay last week, dropping a 2-0 decision to the fourth-place K&A Wolverines (12-22-5) on Thursday night before being pummeled 8-3 by Fort William (32-2-0) on Friday.
The trip to Thunder Bay was the Lakers’ second of the week. They were dumped 11-3 by the North Stars back on Jan. 2 before bouncing back with a 5-1 decision over K&A the following day.
After a scoreless first period, Matt Hunter opened the scoring for K&A late in the second on a goal Strachan considered lucky.
“Their first goal was a lucky bounce,” he recalled. “It hit our defenceman’s skate and bounced right to one of their guys who found it back door for an open net.”
Aaron Ross then sealed it for the hosts midway through the third as he beat Lakers’ goalie Jameson Shortreed.
“We took an undisciplined penalty in the third, a cross-checking penalty that wasn’t necessary, and they scored a power-play goal on our inability to get the puck out at the blueline and that sealed the deal,” bemoaned Strachan.
Shortreed made 43 saves in the loss while Spencer Malone stopped all 34 shots he saw to earn the shutout.
“He was the difference in the game,” Strachan said of Malone. “We couldn’t get anything by him.
“We had two partial breakaways, and five two-on-ones and we couldn’t get anything past him.”
Things got no better for the Lakers on Friday night, although they kept it close in the early going.
Travis Savard notched the lone goal of the first period to put Fort William up 1-0.
The Lakers knotted the score just over a minute into the second when Jaret Leclair notched his second of the season past Fort William goalie Jayme Brattengeier.
But as Fort William has done against the Lakers for much of the season, they responded quickly to kill any momentum. Ryan Pearson scored just 33 seconds after Leclair to give the hosts a 2-1 lead.
Jordan Davis added to the Lakers’ misery at 4:19, beating Shortreed to make it 3-1, before SIJHL scoring leader Ryan Magill pumped the lead to three at 10:41.
The Lakers cut the deficit late in the second on Byron Katapaytuk’s seventh of the campaign. But Pearson struck again just over a minute later, netting his second of the night to make it 5-2.
The North Stars then pulled away in the third as Savard and Eli Halcrow struck just 1:16 apart. Pearson then earned the hat trick at 11:31 to make it an 8-2 game.
Henry Gutierrez tallied a power-play marker at 12:17 to round out the scoring.
Shortreed stopped 41 of the 49 shots he faced while T,J. Pocock stopped all seven he saw in relief.
Brattengeier and Guillaume Piche teamed up to turn away 22 of the 25 shots directed at the Fort William net.
Strachan felt his team might have been a bit intimidated by the North Stars, who have won 13 games by five or more goals this season.
“It’s our team just getting out of our heads that they are the elite team of the league,” he explained. “We’ve got to, I guess, be more up for game. Up for the task.
“The North Stars, they’re loaded with talent and they have the resources to be that way, and if we’re not going to put in a 60-minute effort against them, that’s going to be the outcome that happens,” he warned.
The Lakers shocked the North Stars 2-1 here Dec. 18 but Fort William roared back in their two match-ups since, winning both by a combined score of 19-6.
“We’re one of only two teams to beat them this year, and they don’t take that lightly,” Strachan said. “They’re hungry to play us all the time now and maybe they took us a little for granted when we beat them, but they’re not going to anymore.
“If we don’t respond, then it’s going to be tough game in and game out against them,” he stressed.
The first chance for home fans to catch a glimpse of the new-look Lakers is tomorrow night (Jan. 14) against the visiting Wolverines.
In addition to the lineup tweaks, the game also will mark the home debut for the team’s new jerseys.
