Joey Payeur
It’s hard for a team to win consistently if it plays soft with the game on the line.
Fort Frances Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan wasn’t enamoured with his squad’s grit quotient–missing a chance at a two-game sweep by giving up two goals in 1:40 early in the third period Friday night to fall 3-2 to the host Thunder Bay North Stars.
The Lakers had beaten the Stars 8-5 the previous night. But after taking a 2-0 lead in the first period, and leading 2-1 after 40 minutes, they allowed Jonathon Masters to net the equalizer at 2:44 of the third before Brad Thrower notched the go-ahead goal at 4:24.
“I truly thought we played two good periods of hockey, and then came out in the third and were very soft,” lamented Strachan, whose Lakers (24-24-2-4) now are guaranteed to finish in fifth place in the standings.
That means they’ll begin the first-round, best-of-five “Survivor Series” on the road against whoever finishes in fourth between the English River Miners (29-20-1-3) and Thief River Falls Norskies (28-21-2-3).
“Things we have discussed all season came [back] to hurt us,” Strachan said of Friday night’s third-period collapse.
“Their second goal is a 1-on-2–our two defencemen versus one of their defencemen [Masters].
“Their guy takes a shot to the net, it isn’t handled, and a rebound comes right out front back to him as he followed his shot to the net,” Strachan recounted.
“Our two defencemen basically watch him,” he noted. “There is no contact and he is able to get enough on the rebound to score.
“Not acceptable!”
Thrower’s tally didn’t win the Lakers any plaudits from their coach, either.
“Their third goal is on the power play, but leading up to the power play, we have an opportunity to get the puck out of our zone,” Strachan said.
“We are literally three to four feet from the blueline and we send an errant pass through the middle in which we had no one around.
“They get it, walk in, and our defenceman ends up hauling their guy down,” he added.
“On the power play, their guy walks from the right half-wall across the middle and picks the top corner,” Strachan noted.
“We did a great job on the penalty kill all night until we didn’t get any pressure on their goal scorer.
“We didn’t have a lot of life in the third,” Strachan admitted. “It was a test we needed to rise up to.
“These are games we will need to win in the playoffs to have success and we didn’t battle hard enough.”
The North Stars dominated the shot clock in the first period, but found themselves down by two when Jack Bernie scored just 19 seconds into the game and again at 12:14 during a power play.
It was the Kenora native’s first goals in 15 games dating back to Jan. 30.
“I wasn’t aware that Jack had not scored in that amount of games,” Strachan admitted.
“He is a player that we need to be consistent on a nightly basis,” he noted. “A player we need working hard, finishing checks, and going to the net hard.
“Hopefully, this gives him some life, some confidence back, and he keeps the momentum going.
“I thought Jack and Julian Uhryniuk were our two best players in Friday’s game,” added Strachan.
“Julian had a great opportunity to put us up on the power play on his first shift of the third, but it just sailed over the crossbar.”
Avery Siau got Thunder Bay on the scoreboard at 15:19 while Nathaniel Dupuis didn’t flinch again, turning aside 29 shots to earn the win.
Jessie Heisz had 38 saves for a second-straight night as he gets an extended run as the starter with Brandon Bodnar injured.
“[Heisz] played solid in both games,” said Strachan, who had voiced his displeasure with Heisz’s showing the previous weekend.
“I personally thought he had played more consistent in the game we lost.
“I spoke with him the other day to get a feeling of where he thought his play was at,” Strachan added.
“We discussed a few things in which I told him when he got here, the things I noticed or liked right away were he was quiet in the net, let pucks hit him, was square and in position.
“We feel he has gotten away from that lately,” Strachan noted. “He has more movement in his game, which is taking him out of position, opening holes up, and therefore allowing goals to go in.
“It’s tough for the goaltenders,” he conceded. “I can be hard on them and we don’t have a goalie coach to work with them on their game.”
Thursday night’s game was a run-and-gun affair to the extreme.
Matt Tustin and Dylan Kooner had power-play goals before Jaden Gustafson, with what Strachan termed “a beauty of a goal,” gave the Lakers a 3-0 lead through one period.
But the North Stars quickly erased that deficit as Nicholas Nigro, former Laker Aaron Wesley-Chisel, and Siau all scored within the first 4:15 of the second.
Then the momentum switched course again.
Ian Jarvis put the Lakers back in front at 14:14, with Tustin and Kooner each getting their second of the game (both on the power play) 48 seconds apart inside the final 1:45 of the period to make it a three-goal game again.
Jarvis then netted up his second of the contest at 10:40 of the third to make it 7-3 lead.
Thrower and Siau had man-advantage goals on either side of a Tyler Malpass tally that completed a terrific 5-for-6 night for the Lakers’ power play to round out the scoring.
Jordan Elliott had a tough night between the pipes for the North Stars, giving up all eight goals on just 22 shots.
“I would agree we took advantage of breakdowns,” said Strachan.
“It definitely was not a pretty win, but we jumped on loose pucks and did a good job of getting what shots we did to the net.
“We stayed composed, weathered the storm they brought out of the gates in the second, and forged ahead,” he noted.
“Jarvis’ second goal was big and got us motivated to keep working to have success,” Strachan added.
“It’s funny, when we want to dig deep and show that character, what we can accomplish.”
As for the injury front, the news gradually was improving for the Lakers until another setback in Thunder Bay.
Bodnar and defenceman Mark Richter were expected to be back in the lineup for last night’s game between the Lakers and North Stars at the Ice For Kids Arena (the score was unavailable as of press time).
But forward Austin Petrie, who had an assist in Friday’s game, later suffered an upper-body injury and is out indefinitely.
Petrie only had been back for five games after missing six weeks with an ankle injury.
Meanwhile, Lakers’ leading scorer Jared Virtanen (shoulder) is skating with the team but won’t play this week.
He is to be re-evaluated after Friday’s regular-season finale here against the Dryden GM Ice Dogs (43-7-4).
Defenceman Matt Cheetham and forward Dawson Waddell, both with knee injuries, have not resumed skating yet and remain out indefinitely.
