Joey Payeur
Nathan Park’s fantastic February not only benefitted his team but himself.
Park closed the year’s shortest month with a 31-save outing to backstop the Fort Frances Lakers to a 4-2 victory over the Thunder Bay North Stars here Saturday night.
On Monday, the 20-year-old from Edmonton was named the Gongshow Gear performer-of-the-month after going 7-1 in February while posting a 2.33 GAA and .920 save percentage.
Park is now 12-2 since joining the Lakers in December and leads the SIJHL in GAA (1.92) and save percentage (.931).
He also is tied for the league lead in shutouts with two.
His work Saturday kept Fort Frances (39-10-0-1) afloat after a listless two periods had them trailing the North Stars (25-23-4) by a 1-0 margin on Nicholas Nigro’s bank shot from the right corner with 11 seconds left in the middle stanza that somehow eluded Park.
“The first two periods weren’t our best periods and probably two of the worst we’ve had in a while,” said Lakers’ assistant coach Grant Perreault, who ran the bench with head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan away tending to his son’s illness.
“Mentally, the players weren’t here,” he noted.
“But the players came out in the third and turned it around.”
The turnaround was inspired by Perreault reiterating comments made during the team’s annual awards banquet the previous night by Lakers’ president Milt Strachan.
Surprising more than a few people in the room, Strachan described the team as having “underachieved” this season—despite clinching first place with three weeks to go in the regular season and sitting at No. 9 in the final CJHL top 20 weekly rankings.
“I let them know about what [Milt Strachan] said in between the second and the third, and they rose to the occasion,” said Perreault.
“When they play together and stick to the game plan, they’re a hard team to beat.”
Robbie Bonthron was the first Laker to respond to the challenge—firing a shot that fooled North Stars’ goalie Eric Mann.
“I just got the puck on net for a scoring chance and it ended up going in,” he said modestly.
Just 40 seconds later, Dylan Kooner zoomed past unsuspecting North Stars’ defenceman Tim Cavar to the puck deep in Thunder Bay’s zone.
Kooner, who was named Amyotte’s Awards & Promotions rookie-of-the-month yesterday, immediately centered the puck to Miles Nolan racing up the middle, who fired a one-timer past Mann for a 2-1 lead.
It capped a great month for Kooner, who had 10 points in 11 games and is currently on a five-game point streak.
North Stars’ head coach Jeremy Adduono called time-out after Nolan’s goal to settle his team down.
But Colton Spicer added to the visitors’ woes with a power-play slapshot from the left circle that escaped Mann’s grasp.
Cavar partially redeemed himself with a power-play wrister through the unintentional screen of Lakers’ defenceman A.J. Kapcheck, which left Park unable to keep the puck from going in.
The Stars’ rally was snuffed out 31 seconds later, though, when Bowen Alcock capitalized on a pass from Carter Chorney, who stole the puck from Mann and fed him in the right circle.
“For 40 minutes, we stuck to the game plan and kept it really simple,” a disappointed Adduono said.
“We limited one of the best teams in the country to seven shots in the second period,” he noted.
“I’m not singling anybody out but we made mistakes in the third that shouldn’t be made,” Adduono added.
“You can’t give a good team like that anything. We got a little bit selfish.”
Former Laker blueliner Aaron Wesley-Chisel was equally frustrated.
“We just stopped playing,” he remarked. “Our effort was lower.
“They’re a good team, and I knew they were going to be fast and difficult to play against.”
The Lakers remain without forwards Nolan Ross and Donovan Cousineau, along with defenceman Gordon Campbell, who are all out indefinitely.
The squad faced the visiting English River Miners (10-35-4) last night, with the outcome unavailable as of press time.
Fort Frances will complete the home-and-home series with English River on Friday in Ear Falls, then head back on the road Saturday to face the Dryden GM Ice Dogs (25-21-5).
Their next home game is set for Tuesday (March 10) at 7:30 p.m. against the Minnesota Iron Rangers (28-18-6).
