Joey Payeur
It wasn’t a stretch to think the Fort Frances Lakers could end their modest losing skid.
It just took a stretch.
Colton Spicer did his best Serge Savard impression here Saturday night—whirling around in the slot before reaching around a defender and sliding the puck home 19 seconds into overtime to give the Lakers a 5-4 win over the Minnesota Iron Rangers.
“Going to the net is something we’ve harped on in practice,” noted Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan.
“Wyatt [Cota] had a good chance off the draw, then got the puck over to Colton, who did a spin-o-rama and put it in the net,” he recounted.
With the win, the Lakers (11-5-1) avoided losing three in a row for the first time this season.
The squad also maintained its hold on the No. 13 spot in the CJHL’s top 20 rankings.
Spicer had missed the team’s 3-2 loss to the host Thunder Bay North Stars last Wednesday (Oct. 29) due to a one-game suspension for a gross misconduct picked up against Dryden four nights earlier.
His ninth goal of the season wasn’t enough to retain Spicer’s lead in the SIJHL scoring race, though, as his 24 points are one less than new leader Cole Golka of the Dryden GM Ice Dogs.
But it was enough to deepen the frustrations of Iron Rangers’ head coach Chris Walby, whose team has lost five in a row on the heels of winning five-straight in what has been a streaky season so far for last year’s Bill Salonen Cup finalists.
“It seemed like we had all our assignments taken care of,” said Walby, whose team also has suffered a spate of injuries to key players in recent weeks.
“Spicer was able to protect the puck around his back and then slid it in with that long reach of his.”
Cota bookended his night by setting up Matt Vela on the power play at 8:09 of the first to make it 1-0.
Eric Madison tied it at 15:50 before Thomas Fazio’s power-play goal at 11:29 of the second gave Minnesota (6-5-2) its first lead.
Bryson Jasper put the Lakers back on even terms 40 seconds into the third before Fazio struck again short-handed at 3:06 to restore the Iron Rangers’ advantage.
Back came Fort Frances, with Cota’s seventh of the season at 9:56 followed quickly by Jasper converting a 2-on-0 just 31 seconds later to put the Lakers up 4-3.
“In the second, we got away from moving our feet,” noted Strachan.
“In the third, we reversed that trend and started reading the ice, making good plays, and attacking their defence,” he added.
But only 27 second after Jasper’s second of the night, Matt O’Dea jumped on a loose puck right after a face-off in the Lakers’ end and whipped a quick shot past startled goalie Ryan Ferguson for the equalizer.
“There was a little defensive breakdown when our centre lost his man,” admitted Strachan.
“But the spirit on the bench was still one of motivation,” he stressed.
“They believed they could do it and we knew we needed the two points.”
Ferguson finished with 27 saves to improved to 7-2 on the season while Kyle Carignan made 31 stops but saw his record fall to 4-5.
Last night’s game here between the Lakers and Ice Dogs was postponed after four Dryden players were involved in a motor-vehicle accident there Monday evening.
The quartet were rear-ended by another car and suffered minor injuries, which left them not medically-cleared to play.
With the Ice Dogs already dealing with multiple injuries, the Lakers agreed to the SIJHL’s request to postpone the game to a date still to be determined.
The unexpected night off means Fort Frances will have gone a full week between games before taking on the Ice Dogs there this Saturday.
The Lakers’ next home game is slated for Nov. 12 against the Iron Rangers.
