Mitch Calvert
It was a tale of two different games, but the one the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres probably deserved to lose ended up going in their favour.
The Sabres hosted the SIJHL-leading Fort William North Stars on Friday and Saturday night, losing the opener 5-3 before rebounding with a 4-1 victory at the Ice for Kids Arena.
“If you’d seen both games, you’d think we deserved to win more on Friday just because the way we played,” Sabres’ head coach Wayne Strachan admitted.
The Sabres (24-15-3) seemed headed to a victory Friday night after leading 3-2 with less than five minutes left to play. But Devlin native Jordan Davis tied the game before Joel Langevin notched the go-ahead goal with just over a minute left to stake the Stars to an improbable come-from-behind win.
Trevor Gamache scored into the empty net—his second goal of the game—with 41 seconds left to ice it.
“It just seemed like we weren’t getting the puck out of our zone and were making bad decisions,” Strachan said of the late-game meltdown.
“You can’t do that against that team,” he stressed. “They are too skilled offensively and if they get opportunities to bury it, they usually do.”
Ryan Magill scored the other Stars’ goal in the second while Colton Kennedy scored twice for the Sabres, with his second marker midway through the third breaking a 2-2 deadlock.
Chris Sinclair scored on a power play in the first.
The North Stars (33-6-3) carried that late-game momentum into Saturday night’s tilt, looking far removed from a team playing their fourth game in as many nights.
“The first period was a little rough, and we probably weren’t as sharp as we needed to be, but as the game went on we got better and capitalized on some chances,” Strachan noted.
“We didn’t have as good a game, but maybe the hockey Gods rewarded us for the night before.”
Gamache scored his third in two games—his league-leading 36th of the season—to open the scoring in the second but the Sabres slowly mounted a comeback, getting second-period markers from Brendan Baumgartner and Mitch Cain to take a slim lead into the intermission.
“It was a nice goal on a 3-on-1 by Brendan Baumgartner to tie the game, and then Mitch Cain, with some hard work on the penalty kill with ‘Turg’ [Kyle Turgeon], created a turnover, and Mitch walked out of the corner and scored a really nice goal,” Strachan recalled.
Cain certainly has matured as the season has gone on, using his mid-season Prospects Game invitation and some added experience to his advantage, and now is consistently initiating physical contact and dominating down low.
“He has definitely grown as the year has gone on,” Strachan lauded. “He has some confidence and he realizes he’s a big part of the team, and I think the way Kyle is playing right now is really helping him.”
The Sabres now have gone 2-1-1 against the Stars in the second half of the season after losing all four meetings prior to Christmas.
Next up for the Sabres is a road meeting with the second-place Thunder Bay Bearcats tomorrow night (Feb. 19).
“With the Bearcats, we had success against them in the first half, winning the last three meetings [before Christmas], but in the second half we haven’t been able to muster any points against them,” Strachan noted.
“Last game [a 3-1 loss on Feb. 7] we came a long way and [tomorrow] night is going to be huge for us,” he added.
“We have to go in there and play with some confidence and try to get under their skin, create some things offensively from that, and try to build some momentum for the playoffs,” Strachan insisted.
“It’ll be harder to get our match-ups on the road, but we’ll try to make them work and whoever they want the [Tyler] Miller line to play against, we’ll have confidence [that the line] will do the job like the [Graham] Dyck line did here.”
For the first time in a long time, the Sabres have enough healthy bodies to throw out four lines and only are without Will Morrisseau, who is unlikely to return this season with a shoulder injury.
“Will [Morrisseau] is probably going to be done for the year,” Strachan said. “He’s been told to have surgery on it and not delay any further.
“It’s unfortunate because he’s a guy that we could use in the line-up, whether it be ‘D’ or forward, he’s a well-liked guy around the room, and a good teammate, but it’s nice to look down the bench and see 20 guys rather than 13 right now.”
The Sabres added local product Riley Caul and Atikokan native Logan McDonell to their roster prior to the Feb. 10 deadline.
“With McDonell, it was kind of a discipline [issue] for why he was sent home [last month],” Strachan recalled. “His teammates went to bat for him, and we were thinking of the possibility anyway, and I guess it was the right situation to do it and his attitude seems a lot better.
“Adding Riley gives us a player who can play centre, a left-handed shot, and he can log whatever minutes we can get him on the ice while giving our other guys a little bit of a rest,” Strachan noted.
The Sabres then head to Sioux Lookout for a meeting with the last-place Flyers on Saturday before returning home for six in a row to close out the SIJHL regular season, starting with the Dryden Ice Dogs next Tuesday (Feb. 24).
