Lucas Punkari
They were the top two teams in the SIJHL during the regular season and come Friday night, the Wisconsin Wilderness and Fort Frances Lakers will be going at it once again.
The squads will be battling it out in a pair of two-game, total-goal series over the next week, with the winner getting to choose their opponent for the second round of the playoffs.
“It’s a little bit of a different format, which I think is geared towards having some fun and exciting games for the fans,” said Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“In the regular season, we had games that were very back-and-forth and close affairs for the most part, so I think the fans in both cities will get to enjoy some good hockey,” he added.
The teams split their season series with five wins apiece, with the Lakers being the only squad in the SIJHL loop to post a .500 or better record against the regular-season champion Wilderness.
While the Wilderness already had clinched first place a few weeks ago (finishing the season with a 45-6-5 record for 95 points), the Lakers had to wait until their regular-season finale last Thursday night in Sioux Lookout before wrapping up the second seed.
Trailing the Flyers 2-1 heading into the third period, the Lakers came out firing on all cylinders—scoring three times to grab a 4-2 victory.
“I thought that was one of our best periods of the entire season,” Strachan remarked.
“We didn’t get them [Sioux Lookout] out of their zone for the first seven or eight minutes of the period,” he recalled.
“And even when they did get out, we went right back at them and were able to score some goals as a result.”
While Strachan stressed the win was a total team effort, he did cite the line of Matthew Caulfield, Henry Gutierrez, and Dane Morin as being one of the key contributors to the victory.
“That’s a line that we’ll be using to face-off with the top line of other teams,” Strachan noted.
“They worked together very well on offence on Thursday, and they were able to cause the Flyers’ defenders to have turnovers, which is something that we keyed on in our game plan,” he added.
Gutierrez and Jace Baldwin led the Lakers with a goal and an assist each while Tyler Ampe turned aside 23 shots to earn the victory between the pipes.
Finishing the regular with a 34-19-3 record for 71 points, the Lakers made the trek back down Highway 502 last Thursday knowing they would need help in order to finish second overall.
That help came from the cellar-dwelling Duluth Clydesdales, who earned a 4-3 win over the visiting Thunder Bay North Stars that night which clinched second place for the Lakers.
“We were on our way back to Fort Frances when we found out that Duluth had won,” Strachan noted.
“And once we told the guys, they were extremely excited.”
As icing on the cake, Strachan also found out Thursday that he had been named the SIJHL’s coach-of-the-year for a third time, having previously taken the honour with the former Fort Frances Jr. Sabres in the 2007/08 season and the now-defunct Borderland Thunder franchise during the league’s inaugural season.
“My name will end up on the award, but this honour really speaks to how hard the team and the staff have worked this season,” said Strachan, who edged out Wisconsin’s Rod Aldoff and Clint Mylymok (Dryden Ice Dogs) for the honour.
“This team has been one of the closest in the dressing room and they all work extremely hard on the ice, which led to the 34 wins we achieved this season, which is the most I’ve been a part of as a head coach of a club,” Strachan added.
With the regular season now over, the Lakers have shifted their focus to the Wilderness, with the first two-game set slated for this Friday and Saturday night in Spooner.
The second mini-series then will go next Thursday and Friday night (March 10-11) at the Ice For Kids Arena here.
Meanwhile, the other four SIJHL teams will square off in best-of-seven quarter-finals series starting this week.
The third-place Ice Dogs are clashing with Duluth while the fourth-seeded North Stars face the fifth-place Sioux Lookout Flyers.
“I’m not even sure I would like to have the first choice [of opponent for the semi-finals] because it’ll be a tough match-up either way depending on who wins,” Strachan reasoned.
“Against Wisconsin, we’ll have to play an in-your-face style of game in order to be successful,” he noted.
“But they guys are really up for it and they’ve shown that in the practices since Sunday.”
