Dan Falloon
The Fort Frances Lakers have made it clear they aren’t going to tolerate the Dryden Ice Dogs’ antics any more.
The Lakers, who lost all 12 regular-season match-ups against Dryden and then Game 1 of their semi-final series, certainly haven’t rolled over for the top-seeded ’Dogs.
Fort Frances stretched the Ice Dogs into overtime in Game 1 and double overtime in Game 3, losing both by 4-3 tallies, but bounced back in Games 2 and 4, winning both of those 4-2.
The teams head back to Dryden for Game 5 tonight in what is now a best-of-three series for the right to face the Fort William North Stars in the SIJHL final.
“It was huge, again,” Lakers’ head coach Wayne Strachan stressed after Monday night’s win here.
“It was huge for our confidence as we continue to grow here and turn the momentum in our favour,” he added.
The Lakers have had trouble on home ice during the post-season, winning only once in their first four tries in front of a friendly crowd.
But Strachan felt his squad finally has found its feet at the Ice for Kids Arena with a convincing all-around performance Monday night.
“In that dressing room, they really think that they can achieve greatness in this series,” he enthused. “It was big to get that win under our belts.
“They [Dryden] are a good team and we played them close in a number of games [in the regular season], but sometimes that’s the way it goes.”
Lakers’ assistant captain Blake Boaz was unimpressed with Ice Dogs’ post-game festivities after their double-overtime win here Saturday night—and relished the opportunity to respond.
“The end of last game, we see they’re celebrating,” Boaz recalled.
“They’ve been cocky,” he remarked. “They thought that they would come in here and walk over us.”
Boaz also noted the Lakers have taken extra inspiration in being the Ice Dogs’ hand-picked opponent for this series, and have put up a better fight than perhaps Sioux Lookout might have given the Flyers were shellacked in four-straight games by Fort William in the other semi-final.
Boaz was a major factor in the Lakers’ bounce-back, scoring Monday night’s game-winner after taking a feed from Mike Jourdain and smacking a short-range shot past the glove of goalie Josh Baker.
“I’m just feeling relief. It’s been a tough playoffs for me,” admitted Boaz, who has two goals and three assists so far in the post-season.
“I turned over the puck that led to the goal in the double-overtime game on Saturday, so tonight was a nice game to score in,” he added.
The winner wasn’t the prettiest goal of Boaz’s career, but “there are no pictures on the scoreboard,” he reasoned.
The goal was created, in part, by the Lakers’ vigorous forecheck, which Strachan praised as being one of his team’s most-improved areas so far in the series.
“We’ve played physical for more minutes of the game, we’re getting on their defencemen and continuing to pound them, and we’ve been able to control the red line,” he noted.
On the defensive side of the ledger, the Lakers’ penalty kill has tightened up against a lethal Ice Dogs’ power play, allowing just two goals in 15 man-advantages thus far.
The high kill rate is especially eye-catching considering that through the teams’ first nine regular-season meetings, the Ice Dogs’ power-play was successful 20 times out of 39 tries.
Since then, they’ve gone two-for-29, including the playoffs.
“In the second half [of the season], our penalty kill has improved a lot,” Strachan remarked. “We’re taking the opportunities to get the puck out, we’re more patient, and we’re just playing smart.
“It’s also means great goaltending, which we’re getting right now from Jameson [Shortreed],” he lauded.
Shortreed’s playoff stats are much-improved from the regular season, having lowered his goals against average from 4.55 to 2.68 while his save percentage is up from .895 to .919.
His crowning performance was a 56-save effort Saturday night, albeit in a losing cause.
Strachan credited the fervour of the hometown crowd with giving the team an added boost in Games 3 and 4. Attendance topped the 400 mark for both.
“It’s been great the last two games,” he remarked. “It says a lot for the community to come out and support us.
“Hopefully, we’ll continue to put some good performances together in front of them.”
Game 6 goes Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena, with Game 7 (if necessary) back in Dryden on Saturday night.
It was a promising start this past Saturday night as the host Lakers jumped out to a healthy 2-0 lead by storming the Ice Dogs’ crease.
Jordan Carne and Justin Erhart deflected home pucks just 1:43 apart in the middle of the first period.
Carne’s goal staked him out to the top of the post-season scoring lead with 10 points in 10 games.
Erhart’s tally, meanwhile, was his fourth in three games after not finding the net in any of the seven games of the first-round series versus the K&A Wolverines.
But the Ice Dogs responded just 1:37 after Erhart’s tally. A down-and-out Shortreed was able to make a brilliant point-blank save on Ben McClellan, but BJ McClellan followed up to smack home the rebound.
After a scoreless second, Dryden came out blitzing in the third as Brenden Church and Mike Lennon netted goals 58 seconds apart to snatch the lead.
An unlikely source then came to bat for the Lakers to tie it when defenceman Josh Scott wristed a harmless-looking shot towards the net from the right point.
But after the puck hit an Ice Dog, it trickled through the wickets of Baker to tie the game and force overtime.
The first 10-minute extra period solved nothing. So after a flood of the ice, the teams returned for a second overtime.
Kyle Heck eventually was the hero, putting a puck towards the net that skipped over Shortreed’s stick and across the goal line to break the hearts of the Laker faithful.
Shortreed ended up with 56 saves, including 38 in the first two periods alone, while Baker blocked 37 for Dryden.
Then on Monday, the Lakers again drew first blood as Erhart opened the scoring just 2:05 in for his fifth goal in the last four games.
But Dryden struck quickly before the period was out.
Tanner Harms batted home a puck that popped up in front of Shortreed at 17:21 before Justin Lightfoot was able to get in alone, deke out Shortreed, and deposit a backhand a mere 1:27 later.
The lead didn’t last long into the second, however, as Cody Hasbargen one-timed a point shot past the glove of Ice Dogs’ goalie Josh Baker for his second of the playoffs.
The teams then remained deadlocked for the better part of 30 minutes until the home side broke through about halfway into the third.
Over that span, Shortreed was solid when necessary, picking up a screened point shot by Jon Mitchell to keep the Lakers even.
The effort was rewarded when Boaz put Fort Frances ahead for good, corralling a feed from Jourdain down low, executing a 180-degreee spin, and plugging a close-range shot over Baker’s glove.
Henry Gutierrez added an insurance goal with 3.5 seconds on the clock, skidding a puck from near the Lakers’ bench into the empty net.
Shortreed made 24 saves to earn the win while Baker countered with 19 for the Ice Dogs.
