Joey Payeur
It took a while for the offensive fuse to light, but when it went off, it did so with an emphatic bang.
The Muskie boys hockey team appeared somewhat listless in the early stages of their NorWOSSA regular-season opener against the Dryden Eagles last night at Ice for Kids Arena.
But that all changes with a three-goal explosion in a span of 39 seconds in the first period to send the defending league champions from Fort Frances to a 7-3 victory over the visitors.
The Muskies (1-0) broke the ice when Chase McGuire got a stick on the puck while in front of the Eagles’ net at 7:11.
It was a case of delayed celebration, as all the players stood around wondering if the referee would wave off the goal due to what was close to a high stick by McGuire, only to have the man in stripes signal the goal as having counted shortly thereafter.
McGuire erased any doubts about his second goal only 22 seconds later, as he charge down the left wind and uncorked a wrist shot which beat Dryden goalie William Chukra to the stick side for a 2-0 lead.
Seventeen seconds after the next face-off, the puck was sent in front of the Dryden net and Matt Cheetham quickly knocked it into the cage to extend the lead.
The Eagles (0-1) used a timeout after Cheetham’s marker to regroup and it seemed to work as Matt Kellar converted a cross-ice feed from Cam Zappitelli during an Eagles power-play at 8:56 to slice the lead to 3-1.
But the black-and-gold got back on track at 11:44, when Graeme Kitt shovelled the puck on net from his knees and somehow it squirted through Chukra and in.
Fort Frances, who had a flurry of injuries last Sunday in the final game of their three-game exhibition set with the Thunder Bay Minor Midget Kings and entered the game without the services of defenceman Wade Johnson (lower-body injury), lost captain and blue-line corps anchor Carter Brown at 14:33.
Brown, who left the Thunder Bay game with an undisclosed injury, was clearing the puck out of the Fort zone and didn’t see Dryden’s Matthew Pitchenese steaming in to lay a hellacious hit that left Brown in a heap on the ice.
The Grade 12 veteran managed to skate off under his own power, but was held out of the game for the rest of the night as a precaution.
Zappitelli had the lone goal of the middle stanza, working his way from out behind the net and putting a quick shot past Muskie goalie Dylan Ossachuk’s glove at 6:46.
But Fort Frances stepped up its game in the third with three goals, including tallying on both their power-play opportunities.
The first of those came at 1:48, when Spencer Shortreed unleashed a bullet from the point through a screen that found the bottom right corner of the net for a 5-2 lead.
Jarred Taylor then kicked into overdrive to create a breakaway opportunity for himself, racing down the left wing and rocketing a shot past Chukra on the stick side at 7:28.
McGuire had his night end prematurely, as he was issued a minor and a game misconduct for a questionable hit from behind which left the Dryden player down on the ice for a while, but still healthy enough to come back on for his next scheduled shift.
Then at 15:06, with Dryden’s Noah Brunton in the sin bin for tripping, Cheetham’s point shot was expertly deflected in by rookie Kendyn Faragher.
Dryden made the score somewhat more respectable with 28 seconds remaining, as Keith Wrolstad redirected Pitchenese’s feed on a 2-on-1 past Ossachuk.
Fort Frances is in Morden, Man., for a weekend tournament which begins for the Muskies today at 1:30 p.m.
Their opponent was not identified as of press time.
