Joey Payeur
Robbie Bonthron’s innocent-looking shot ignited a four-goal third period to lift the Lakers to a 4-2 victory over the Thunder Bay North Stars on Saturday night at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Bonthron erased the Stars’ 1-0 lead with a 25-footer that beat Eric Mann early in the third after Nicholas Nigro had scored for Thunder Bay with 10 seconds left in the second.
“I just got the puck on net for a scoring chance and it ended up going in,” he noted.
The North Stars never recovered.
Dylan Kooner won a race to the puck in the Thunder Bay zone and centered quickly to Miles Nolan, who one-timed a shot past Mann just 40 seconds later for a 2-1 lead.
Colton Spicer marked his return to the lineup after a two-game absence by ripping a power-play goal by Mann to make it three goals in a span of 2:28.
Tim Cavar gave the North Stars hope with his power-play tally.
But just 31 seconds later, Carter Chorney stole the puck from Mann and centered it to Bowen Alcock, who rocketed a blast from the right face-off circle.
Nathan Park made 31 saves to help the Lakers win their second-straight game and seventh in their past eight.
His performance capped a February run that saw Park announced today as the Gongshow Gear performer-of-the-month.
The 20-year-old from Edmonton posted a 7-1 record last month, along with a 2.33 GAA and .920 save percentage.
Park is 12-2 since joining the Lakers in mid-December, leads all SIJHL goalies in GAA (1.92) and save percentage (.931), and is tied for the league lead in shutouts (two).
The North Stars, meanwhile, lost their third-straight and fifth in the last six.
Thunder Bay (25-23-4) could have moved past the Dryden GM Ice Dogs (25-21-5) into third place with a win, but suffered what head coach Jeremy Adduono described as an even more difficult loss than the 8-1 pounding his team took from the Lakers a week earlier here.
“For 40 minutes, we stuck to the game plan and kept it really simple,” noted Adduono, whose injury-wracked team still only has 11 regulars in the lineup, along with some Midget ‘AAA’ call-ups.
“I’m not singling anybody out, but we made mistakes in the third that shouldn’t be made,” he added.
Lakers’ forwards Nolan Ross and Donovan Cousineau remain out indefinitely with injuries, although Cousineau looks to be on track to return earlier than first expected.
Fort Frances opens a home-and-home series with the last-place English River Miners (10-35-4) here tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.
Then they’ll head to Ear Falls on Friday for the rematch.
