In a weekend in which neither team scored less than six goals per game, the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres got a win and a tie to take their second-ever series and leapfrog the Marathon Renegades in the SIJHL standings.
The Sabres never trailed against Marathon on Friday night, but still needed overtime to seal a 7-6 victory.
The tables were turned in the Renegades’ favour Saturday, with the Sabres falling behind 5-1 in the first period before battling back to earn a 6-6 draw.
“It’s definitely good,” Sabres’ head coach Wayne Strachan said. “We talked about this weekend turning around our season. Three out of four [points] is pretty good.”
While the Renegades earned two points for getting to overtime both nights, the Sabres’ win Friday vaulted them ahead of Marathon in the standings.
The two teams had come into the weekend tied in points, but Marathon still has three games in hand on Fort Frances.
The Sabres stayed one step ahead of the Renegades on Friday night but no further, spending just under half the game leading by one goal or tied.
Marathon kept the contest close, scoring within a minute of a Fort Frances goal on two occasions before evening the match late in the third period.
Matthew York capitalized on a power play to seal the deal in overtime.
Marathon then came out of the gate a more driven team on Saturday night, jumping out to a 5-1 lead in the first period thanks, in part, to some suspect play by Sabres’ goalie Ryan Faragher, who was pulled with less than six minutes left in the period after a particularly unforgivable goal.
Strachan put Faragher back out in the second and he responded with some of his best play in a Sabres’ uniform—stopping 24 of 25 shots in the next two periods and overtime.
York again was the offensive hero, earning a hat trick while assisting on the tying goal.
“It was pretty good on my part, and I know that,” York said afterwards. “I just tried to bring the team up with my play. I was just hoping they’d follow.”
The forward admitted he, himself, wasn’t sure what to attribute his strong play to. “I don’t know, it just came natural today,” he noted. “Tried my best to put ’em in, and I did.”
As for the arena being full of hats and the ice quite bare after his third goal, York simply shrugged.
“It’d be nice to see them fly on the ice, but it can’t always happen,” he remarked. “Not too many people wanna give away their favourite hats.”
Strachan said York and Faragher, along with forwards Brock Owen and Quinn Amiel in particular, showed their mettle by coming back full force in the second and third periods in a game that seemed all but lost.
“Those are things you look for, and it was an all-character comeback tonight,” he said after the game.
Amiel, who himself had a goal and an assist in each of the two games, put credit where it was due Saturday night.
“Matty York, that was an unbelievable performance tonight. He really put the team on his back,” he enthused.
Sending Faragher back out in the second period was a gamble, but one that paid off handsomely for the Sabres.
The starter was yanked after allowing a natural hat trick to Marathon’s Fredrick LaMontangne, followed closely by an embarrassing error that made the score 4-0.
An errant puck off the stick of Tyler Campbell crawled towards a standing Faragher and through his skates, prompting Strachan to replace him with David Novak for the rest of the period.
Strachan said Faragher’s turnaround—in which he looked brilliant in net for the rest of the game—was all his own.
“I didn’t say anything to him after the first period except, ‘You’re going back in,’” Strachan noted.
The Sabres may have a tough time retaining their new fifth-place spot in the standings for long, however, as they face the Fort William North Stars in Thunder Bay this coming weekend.
The North Stars have fallen to third in the SIJHL standings, but remain ninth on the national CJAHL top 15.
The Sabres have reason to hope, though. In their two previous games this season, Fort Frances lost by manageable scores of 6-4 and 6-5 in overtime.
“It’s hard to play against them [Fort William] when they’re nationally-ranked, but I think we can step up against any team in this league,” York said.
Amiel, wearing one of the team’s three alternate captain’s patches for the first time on home ice for the weekend, said the momentum the Sabres bring from the Marathon series can be the difference.
“We play the North Stars and we gotta bring the same attitude as in those last two periods [versus the Renegades], because right now they’re ranked ninth in Canada,” he remarked.
“We’ve got three [non-losses] in the last five games and we haven’t been able to say that all year,” he added.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
