Joey Payeur
Nick Minerva isn’t afraid to venture into the offensive zone—and lately that approach has been paying huge dividends for the blueliner and his team.
Minerva notched a pair of goals to power the Fort Frances Lakers to a 5-3 victory over the host Thunder Bay North Stars on Friday night.
It was the squad’s eighth-straight win and extended their lead over the second-place North Stars to seven points, with four games in hand.
The Lakers’ recent surge also moved them up three spots in the CJHL’s top 20 rankings this week to No. 12.
Minerva, who has five points in his past two games, left the penalty box at exactly the right time Friday night—taking a pass from Donovan Cousineau and racing in on a breakaway before beating North Stars’ goalie Nathaniel Dupuis at 12:57 of the third for a 4-2 lead.
“I think Nick’s confidence has grown as he has played with the team,” noted Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“He is reading opportunities to jump into holes and he got a break [Friday] night coming out of the penalty box to score our fourth goal,” Strachan added.
“He is reading the ice and finding good position to be in to create scoring chances.
“I wouldn’t say he has the green light as we are a defence-first mentality team,” said Strachan.
“But in our transition, we like our defence to be active and join our offensive attack when possible.”
Lucas DeBenedet made it 5-2 just over a minute later when he became the seventh Laker to hit the 10-goal mark this season.
“In my opinion, our 5-on-3 penalty kill won us the hockey game,” said Strachan.
“Our penalty-killers played good position, didn’t give them any real great opportunities, paid the price to block shots, and Nathan [Park] made the stops we needed him to,” he noted.
“Then as soon as the 5-on-3 was done, Minerva got a breakaway and scored,” Strachan added.
“A few minutes later, Lucas makes it 5-2 and you could feel some closure to the game.
“I don’t feel our PK has been a good part of our game lately,” admitted Strachan.
“[Friday night it was good but in our last three of five games, I have felt we have . . . given too many power-play opportunities to our opponents and this has allowed them to stay in some games with us.
“We changed a few things in our PK systems last week, and I thought for the most part it went well Friday night,” he remarked.
DeBenedet has been on fire during the Lakers’ current winning streak, getting at least a point in all eight games while compiling seven goals and nine assists over that span.
His six points in two games last week also was enough to earn him the Amyotte’s Awards & Promotions Corp. player-of-the-week honours.
The Lakers are now 14-0 this season in games when DeBenedet gets at least one point.
Minerva and Avery Siau traded power-play goals in a first period Friday night that featured plenty of overboiled emotion.
Siau’s goal was the result of a controversial offensive zone face-off awarded by the officials.
“We thought a North Star player shot the puck directly into the glass and it bounced into the protective net,” noted Strachan.
“It wasn’t seen that way by the officials and that led to [Thunder Bay] tying the game.
“When the ref came over to explain his call, I was heated and we exchanged words and then things escalated from there.”
By the time the brouhaha was over, Lakers’ assistant coach Grant Perreault was ejected from the game.
Then before the period was over, Colton Spicer dropped the gloves with Mitchell Caruso, whose head shot had knocked Spicer out of the last game between the teams here on Dec. 20.
“All and all, even with the fight, I didn’t think it affected our game and we stayed
composed and controlled most of the play,” said Strachan.
Park made 36 saves to improve to 3-0 record since joining the Lakers, to go along with a sparkling 1.46 GAA and .950 save percentage.
Meanwhile, Lakers’ forward Carter Chorney missed his second-straight game with illness, although Strachan said the reigning SIJHL rookie-of-the-month should be back in action later this week.
The Lakers hosted the last-place English River Miners last night, with the outcome unknown as of press time.
The Miners entered the game having lost four-straight and 17 of their past 19 games, and seem to have thrown in the towel on the season.
That was evident with the trades of top scorer Eric Champagne (30 points) and third-leading scorer Jake Staples (25) in advance of Saturday’s CJHL trade deadline.
Dominic Blouin is the only English River player left with 20 or more points this season.
By comparison, the Lakers are tied with Thunder Bay with a league-high nine players in that category.
The Lakers and North Stars will battle again this Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
