Lucas Punkari
The only guarantee is that the Bill Salonen Cup will be presented tonight at the Northwest Sports Complex in Spooner, Wis.
Just who will be hoisting the trophy remains a mystery.
The Fort Frances Lakers and Wilderness will take to the ice at 7 p.m. in the seventh-and-deciding game of the SIJHL final after Wisconsin twice staved off elimination—including a 1-0 win here Monday night to knot the series at 3-3.
Following a pair of wins on home ice last Wednesday and Thursday, the Lakers looked to have the series in control with a 3-1 lead.
But the Wilderness stayed alive with a 3-1 triumph in Spooner on Saturday night, then forced Game 7 with that 1-0 shutout at the Ice For Kids Arena.
“We haven’t played up to our potential in the last couple of games,” a visibly disappointed Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan said following Monday’s loss.
“I told the guys after the game it’s about being prepared, and I haven’t seen that in the last two losses,” he noted.
“We’ve been a team that has been a little too loose and we need a leader as our big guys haven’t stepped up to the task.
“I don’t know if we might have been a little bit over-confident and thought the series was in the bag after going up 3-1, but Wisconsin has deserved the last two victories,” Strachan added.
“And we have a big hole to climb ourselves out of on Wednesday there.”
The Wilderness seem to have momentum on their side following two-straight victories as their overall play has improved drastically after some struggles early on in the series.
“We are playing the way that we know that we can,” said Wilderness head coach and general manager Rod Aldoff.
“At the end of the day, what the scoreboard shows is a result of what you do during 60 minutes.
“Our goal as a team throughout the season is to play strong, smart hockey in our games,” he noted. “In the first half of the series we weren’t doing that.
“But we have a resilient group and they have been able to play the way that we know they can.”
In front of a franchise-record crowd of 933 fans at the Ice For Kids Arena on Monday, the Lakers were unable to beat Wilderness goalie Tanner Milliron as a shot from Wilson Housley early in the second period proved to be the difference.
“This is absolutely great,” smiled Milliron, who won the SIJHL goalie-of-the-year award this season.
“We have had our backs against the wall here in the last couple of games, but we have a really good team that knows how to win and we have been able do just that lately,” he noted.
After being out-shot in the first two periods, the Lakers had numerous scoring chances in the third. But despite a couple of late power plays, they were unable to notch the game-tying marker.
“I thought that tonight [Monday] was a perfect setting to wrap things up,” Strachan said.
“I was not pleased with our play in the first 40 minutes as they had the jump on us and we also made some bad decisions with the puck,” he recalled.
“We played decent in the third period, but it was too late to try and battle back against a good team like Wisconsin.”
While trying to win the series on the road against the Wilderness will be a very tough task, the Lakers are the only team to triumph at the Northwest Sports Complex all season, taking a 4-2 victory in Game 1 of the final on April 1.
“We got the job done there last week, and we need to bear down and do it once again,” stressed Lakers’ forward Davis Smith.
“This is a big game for us obviously coming up, and we really need to step our game up and play hard out there in their barn.”
With the series knotted up a game apiece going into Game 3 here last Wednesday, the Lakers’ offence came out firing, They held a four-goal lead twice in the third period, then withstood a late charge by the Wilderness to prevail 7-5.
“In the first two periods I thought we played really good hockey for the better part of 15 minutes or so,” Strachan recalled.
“The third was a great opportunity to wear Wisconsin down heading into Game 4,” he reasoned.“But twice after we scored, they came right back and scored themselves and you just can’t let that happen.
“I don’t know if we thought the game was over when it was 6-3, but they had a solid effort to storm back and we were able to rise to the occasion in the final three minutes to solidify the victory.”
Adam Wensley and Byron Katapaytuk each scored a pair of goals, with Jaret LeClair, Jordan Christianson, and Jordan Larson adding singles.
Game 4 last Thursday night at the Ice For Kids Arena was a drastically different contest as the Lakers edged the Wilderness 2-1 in a tight affair.
Trailing by a goal heading into the third, Larson and Alex Bruess both scored early in the frame to give the home side a lead they would never relinquish, thanks in large part to the performance by goalie Tyler Ampe, whose 28 saves earned him the game’s first star.
“I thought that in the first 40 minutes on Thursday night that we were outplayed for the most part,” Strachan admitted.
“I challenged them after the second period and they rose to the occasion by playing more to our game plan, and we had a couple of nice individual efforts from Jordan and Alex to get the goals that we needed in the third.”
The Lakers then had a chance to clinch the series Saturday night in Spooner, but the Wilderness staved off elimination with a 3-1 victory.
Wisconsin held a 2-0 early in the third until Lakers’ defenceman Connor Hady hit the twine on a power play to bring the visitors within one heading in to the final minutes.
The Lakers pulled out all the stops during the dying stages of regulation time, including pulling Ampe from the net, but Jeremy Johnson slid the puck into the gaping cage with only a second left to seal the deal.
“It was a little disappointing to watch,” Strachan sighed.
“I didn’t think we had the jam that we needed to close out the series as we should have come out a little more hungrier,” he noted.
“But they played for their lives and took advantage of couple of our mistakes.”
Tonight’s winner also will represent the SIJHL at this year’s Dudley Hewitt Cup, which gets underway next Tuesday afternoon at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.
The Thunder Bay North Stars will be there as the tournament host while the representatives for the NOJHL and the OJHL are still to be determined.
In the NOJHL, the Soo Thunderbirds held a 3-1 series lead over the North Bay Trappers heading into Game 5 last night in Sault Ste. Marie.
Meanwhile, the OJHL final between the Stouffville Spirit and Whitby Fury is knotted up at 2-2, with Game 5 taking place in Stouffville tonight.
