Dan Falloon
The Fort Frances Lakers can breathe a sigh of relief, for now.
The squad wrapped up its season series with the league-leading Fort William North Stars with a pair of bombs, falling 5-0 there Friday night and 7-2 on Saturday.
“It was a rough weekend for us, for sure,” admitted Lakers’ captain Tyler Stevenson. “We didn’t show up for either of the games too well, but before that we showed up pretty good.
“If we forget about this weekend, we should be all right, hopefully,” he added.
The Lakers (13-28-5) squared off with the third-place Sioux Lookout Flyers last night as they kicked off their final homestand of the regular season.
Fort Frances had defeated the Flyers in Sioux Lookout in their last two match-ups.
But the Lakers were much less successful against the North Stars (42-5-1), completing the season series with a 1-11 mark, including 0-6 at the Fort William Gardens, getting outscored 47-13 in those games.
“They were tough games, but we didn’t come out to play,” noted Stevenson. “And those [games] are what’s going to happen against the top teams.”
The Lakers were unable to contain North Stars’ offensive attack, which fired 94 shots at the Lakers’ goalie tandem of Jameson Shortreed and T.J. Pocock.
Stevenson agreed the netminders shouldn’t be seeing that much rubber.
“They’re a skilled team, all four lines, and you’ve got to bring your ‘A’ game against them and be good in your own end or they’re going to record that many shots,” he remarked.
“When you give up that many shots, it’s tough to win.
“Shortreed played pretty good,” Stevenson added. “He gave up a couple soft ones, but other than that none of the goals were really his fault.”
Stevenson also lauded the play of defenceman Cody Hasbargen, who tried to rally the Lakers late in Friday night’s loss.
“He stepped up and he fought [Dan] Usiski, who’s one of the tougher guys in the league in the first game, so that was good to see some of that, some passion and emotion,” praised Stevenson.
Fort Frances began the weekend with three games in hand on the fourth-place K&A Wolverines, trailing the Thunder Bay squad by six points.
With the Wolverines idle over the weekend, the Lakers now only hold one game in hand over K&A, meaning their two-game set here this Friday and Saturday (Feb. 19-20) will do a lot to determine playoff seeding as the SIJHL regular season winds down.
Under the league’s playoff format, the fourth- and fifth-place teams face off in the first round while the top three play off for the right to choose their opponent in the second round.
If the Lakers make it out of the first-round match, the North Stars are the odds-on favourite to be waiting on the other side. If so, Stevenson said he and his teammates have gathered several useful bits of information over the course of their weekend losses.
“It was kind of a live-and-learn weekend,” he explained. “We know we have to be better now as the season winds down and we know what we’ve got to do to beat teams like that.
“But it’s a tough way to learn it,” he conceded.
With K&A sitting five points behind the Sioux Lookout Flyers for third place, a Wolverine-Laker showdown in the first round is looking more and more likely by the day.
In Friday night’s 5-0 defeat, the Lakers held tough through the first period as both teams failed to tally.
The North Stars broke it open in the second, though, as SIJHL goal-scoring leader Ryan Magill beat Shortreed just 1:53 into the frame.
Adam Restoule put Fort William up 2-0 before Magill’s second of the game made it a three-goal cushion.
Jordan Davis then beat Shortreed before the period was through.
Magill completed his hat trick on the North Stars’ lone power play of the game, tallying at 5:01 of the third.
Shortreed stopped 33 shots while Guillaume Piche turned aside all 15 Lakers’ shots for his fifth shutout of the season.
Magill kept it going in Saturday’s rematch, putting one past Pocock just 52 seconds into the game.
Travis Savard made it 2-0 at 6:41 before Ryan Pearson followed a mere 43 seconds later.
Randall Hanlan wrapped up the first-period scoring at 11:15 to stake the North Stars to a 4-0 lead after one.
The Lakers’ attack showed some more life in the second period, recording 11 shots after picking up only two in the first.
Still, the North Stars tallied three times in the frame, beginning with Davis at 6:17.
After Eli Halcrow made it 6-0 at 7:31, Tim Hennessey beat Fort William’s Jayme Brattengeier just 25 seconds later to put the Lakers on the board with his fifth of the season.
Ryan Pearson regained the North Stars’ six-goal cushion at 9:04, but Fort Frances’ Blake Boaz rounded out the scoring with his eighth of the season at 10:54.
Neither team was able to score for the remaining period-and-a-half.
