Sabres leave Fort William with 5-3 win

Things finally look to be clicking for the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres, who split their weekend series with the mighty Fort William North Stars, winning 3-1 on Friday before falling 5-3 on Saturday night.
The North Stars (14-7-0-0), one of the league’s perennial powerhouses, have slumped as of late, losing four of their last eight and slipping to third in the league standings even as Fort Frances (6-12-3-3) has earned three wins and a tie in their last seven—opening the door for an upset victory for the visitors.
“Definitely you could call it an upset,” head coach Wayne Strachan said. “They’ve [North Stars] got a fairly good squad. They think they’re tops in the league, and Friday night our team went in focused.”
Friday’s win was led by left winger Quinn Amiel who scored the first and third goals, sandwiching one from Brendan Baumgartner. Alessio Tomassetti had three assists on the night.
“That was a huge victory,” Amiel said. “We proved that we can win when we want to play with any team in this league . . . we just needed to prove it to ourselves.”
“Everyone gave a good effort out there. It wasn’t just one guy,” Tomassetti added. “We know we can beat any team in this league, it’s a known fact.”
The Sabres managed a paltry 10 shots on the night—Strachan chalked that stat up to a number of shots wide of the net—but made enough of them count, including the empty netter by Amiel to end the game.
“It was just a solid victory, a solid role victory,” Amiel said. “We were outshot 20 to 10 and we still won it.”
“Mentally we were focussed, and we went out there, and our gameplan we played to a ‘T,’” Strachan said. “We slowed them down. We didn’t turn the puck over through the middle. We were using the boards and I think basically we outworked them.
“They were frustrated, and maybe took some bad penalties and, like I said, our power play’s been key for us in the last month or so.”
The same game and goal production simply wasn’t enough the next night, as the North Stars got on the board first with Fort Frances trying to catch up. Tomassetti and Matthew York each netted a goal and an assist, with Chad Reynolds earning the other goal.
“I think they really stepped up their game,” Amiel said, “and talking to a couple of the North Stars, their coach just went ballistic on them (after their loss).”
Strachan figured his team may have let themselves get a little too satisfied with Friday’s win, but also blamed the calls with keeping the Sabres behind.
“I hate to complain about reffing, but the reffing was completely awful Saturday right from the ref to the linesman,” he said. “There was a blatant penalty on them right in front of the ref and he didn’t call it, their guy comes on the breakaway and scores a goal.”
Goaltender Ryan Faragher stopped in both contests, turning aside 39 shots on Saturday, and 20 of 21 on Friday night.
The Sabres’ win Friday was the team’s first against a North Stars squad that remains in 11th place in the CJAHL Top 15 rankings of all Canadian Junior ‘A’ hockey teams coast to coast, despite their struggles of late within their own league.
The Sabres had battled the North Stars to a few close scores, including a 6-5 overtime loss in their last meeting on Oct. 20. Strachan was glad to put on a show on the road in the league’s home of Thunder Bay.
“I thought both games we played well, and I guess showed to the league and their fans that were at the game that we are for real, and we are getting better and we are going to keep getting better and improving,” he said.
“.500 (in our last seven games) is not hot by all means, but it’s moving in the right direction,” he added.
“If you look . . . it is hot for us.”
The Sabres, who have so long talked about a turn-around on the season, seem to have finally found it with their recent wins, and hope to continue their strong play next weekend when they host the Schreiber Diesels.
The Diesels sit fourth in the league—the place in the standings that the Sabres have in mind as their year-end goal—and are just three points ahead.
While it’s not a foregone conclusion that the Diesels won’t have distanced themselves in the standings by next week with a two-game series against the Thunder Bay Bearcats next weekend, as it stands the Sabres are just a series sweep away from passing Schreiber in the standings.
“We can’t afford to (miss out on) those four points,” Amiel said.