Joey Payeur
With nary a white flag to raise nor a towel to throw in close at hand, Nathaniel Dupuis created his own signature of surrender.
The Thunder Bay North Stars’ goalie pulled himself out of the game in frustration at having just given up what would be the last salvo in a 9-0 romp by the Fort Frances Lakers here Friday night.
Sam Schultz one-timed Nick Minerva’s cross-ice pass over a diving Dupuis with 2:24 to go to complete a 3-for-5 power-play night for the Lakers (27-7-0-1).
It also marked the team’s 10th-straight victory, which is tied for the best current streak in the entire Canadian Junior Hockey League.
Dupuis, who had replaced starter Eric Mann after the Lakers went up 4-0 at 16:58 of the second on Minerva’s tally, immediately skated to the North Stars’ bench and motioned over his shoulder with his stick to indicate his wish to have Mann return to duty.
He then angrily tossed the stick into the bench.
Wyatt Cota added a goal and two assists for the Lakers—giving him six points in two games to earn the Amyotte’s Awards & Promotions Corp. player-of-the-week award in the SIJHL.
Lucas DeBenedet had captured the honour the previous week.
“That was definitely the 60-minute effort we’ve been looking for,” lauded Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan, whose team beat the second-place North Stars (21-15-4) for the seventh time in nine meetings this season.
With the win, the Lakers also moved up one spot to No. 11 in the CJHL’s weekly top 20 rankings.
“We were a little slow at the start but once we got rolling, we got better throughout the game,” noted Strachan.
Thunder Bay, meanwhile, has fallen nine points behind Fort Frances in the race for first, with the Lakers also holding four games in hand.
“Games like this are always hard to analyze, but it’s one you want to forget as soon as possible,” sighed North Stars’ head coach Jeremy Adduono.
Evidently his team still was feeling the effects of the rout the following night, when they were upset 4-3 by the last-place English River Miners (7-27-4) in Ear Falls.
“We’re missing four of our top guys to injury right now,” Adduono noted.
“We’ve got Junior ‘B’ players up with us and we’ve got forwards having to play defence.
“It’s hard enough to win with that, but especially when you have to play a team like Fort Frances that’s four lines deep,” he stressed.
Lakers’ forward Mason Meyer, who had two assists in Friday night’s win, said it was a statement game for the defending SIJHL champs.
“We let the rest of the league know we’re going to be for real for the rest of the year,” said Meyer, who leads the team in scoring with 44 points.
“Coming into the game, our goal was to not let up and pour it on,” he noted.
“[Strachan] wanted us to play harder for the entire game and we did that.”
Lakers’ captain Miles Nolan opened the scoring at 15:10 of the first with a dazzling display of puck-handling, slipping it through the legs of Kenny Turner and then cutting to the mid-slot before whipping a shot past Mann.
Bryson Jasper reeled in Meyer’s pass from the corner during a power play and beat Mann five-hole one second shy of two minutes later to double the lead.
In the second, Nolan Ross redirected Dylan Robertson’s slap pass from the left boards behind Mann at 10:03 before Minerva’s stick-side wrister sent Mann to the bench in favour of Dupuis.
The onslaught continued in the third when Cota launched a rocket stick-side on Dupuis at 1:36.
Dylan Kooner then ended a 12-game goal-scoring drought at 6:45 when he tipped home a point shot by Cody Antonini, who earned his first point as a Laker.
“I knew if I just stayed positive, eventually it was going to come,” a relieved Kooner said after the game.
“I got lucky . . . it was a good shot by Cody.”
Ross, a Fort native, then continued his homecoming celebration at 13:18 when he put in a rebound during a man-advantage to give him his third goal in two games since joining the Lakers at the Jan. 10 trade deadline from the Portage Terriers (MJHL).
DeBenedet, who is on a 10-game point-scoring streak, then scored at 14:46 on a goal the North Stars argued shouldn’t have counted.
That led to Dupuis eventually getting a slashing minor and throwing in a punch for good measure against Bowen Alcock.
Schultz capitalized just over a minute later—making him the 12th Laker skater with at least one point in the one-sided contest, with Dupuis calling it a night after that.
Nathan Park, meanwhile, was steady all night in the Lakers’ net, making 26 saves for his second shutout.
“We’re on a good streak right now but we want to move forward as a team,” stressed Strachan, whose team killed off all six North Stars’ power plays.
“Not every game is going to be easy,” he noted.
“We need to be confident but need to keep working hard.”
The Lakers will try for 11-straight wins tonight when they visit Hoyt Lakes to take on the third-place Minnesota Iron Rangers (19-12-4), who are 3-3-0-2 against Fort Frances this year.
The game will be the first in a home-and-home series with the Iron Rangers, which will wrap up here Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
