Mitch Calvert
They were supposed to come dressed in red last weekend at the Ice for Kids Arena. But if last night’s Game 5 in Thunder Bay didn’t go the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres’ way, their fans will be wearing black today to mourn the end of their team’s playoff hopes.
The Sabres were pushed to the brink of elimination in their best-of-seven SIJHL semi-final series after a tough 3-2 overtime loss to the visiting Bearcats on Sunday night.
Bearcats’ forward Kyle Tront went from the doghouse (thanks to a selfish retaliation penalty in the first period) to the penthouse after scoring the controversial overtime winner midway through the 10-minute extra frame.
He somehow snuck one past Sabres’ goalie Ryan Faragher on a high backhand shot that Faragher appeared to keep out of the net, but the referee was right there to signal it a goal even before Faragher emerged with the puck in his glove.
“To this minute I still can’t believe the game ended the way it did,” Sabres’ head coach Wayne Strachan said. “The crowd and both teams were in shock.
“[The Bearcats] did the right thing. I would’ve got off the ice as quick as possible, too,” he admitted.
“I just don’t know how the ref can justify calling a goal [on a shot] that was caught in the air,” Strachan remarked. “You have to know for sure that it crossed the line.”
The Sabres stayed on the ice for several minutes after the call and many of the 600 fans on hand stuck around to serenade the referee with boos as he left the ice.
An emotional Brendan Baumgartner stressed the squad isn’t about to hang up their skates for the summer just yet despite the heart-breaking loss in Game 4 to trail 3-1.
“We showed so much heart throughout this whole series, throughout the whole playoffs, and throughout the whole year,” Baumgartner said. “We’ve got to want it.
“Like Wayne [Strachan] says, if a wolf’s in a bear trap, he’ll chew his foot off before the hunter gets him, and we have to show that same heart and determination and bring it back here for Game 6 [on Thursday night],” Baumgartner stressed.
Fort Frances native Tyler Miller, who heard his fair share of jeering from the hometown faithful, scored his first junior goal at the Ice for Kids Arena with just shy of five minutes to go in the first period to put the Bearcats up 1-0.
“I just won the draw and ‘Whitie’ [Brian White] chipped it back to [Andrew Groom] and just a shot on net and the rebound was waiting right there for me,” Miller recalled.
“I like playing in this barn, but it’s changed since I played here last [for the Muskies],” he noted. “Whoever dished out the money was where they were going to send me, and if they [the Sabres] wanted me here, they could’ve got me, so it’s hard playing here.
“You just take a good victory and get the job done, and that’s what I’m here for.”
Baumgartner knotted the score 1-1 just under seven minutes into the second on a tic-tac-toe passing play between himself and Chris Sinclair on a power play while Miller was off for tripping.
“I took a stupid penalty and they get a goal off of it, and you can’t do that,” Miller admitted. “Sometimes the big crowd pumps me up, but when I take a stupid penalty, [the jeering] definitely gets to me.”
That 1-1 score held up until early in the third when Graham Dyck was whistled for a soft cross-checking penalty on Brad Pawlowski that the 6’3’, 210-pound defender clearly embellished by sprawling to the ice.
Not surprisingly, Pawlowski was the one to score with the man up as his hard wrist shot from the point snuck through a screen to give the visitors a 2-1 lead.
The Sabres didn’t quit, however, with Kyle Turgeon converting on a rebound off a Dan Usiski shot 9:19 into the final period to tie the score 2-2.
Colton Kennedy, who returned for the two games here over the weekend after a month-long hiatus with a collarbone injury, nearly put the Sabres in front on a breakaway later in the period before being stopped on a backhand deke by Bearcats’ goalie Drew Strandberg.
“He brings a lot of speed, and we know where each other are on the ice,” Baumgartner said of the rekindling of the line with Kennedy alongside him and Sinclair.
“I’m not saying [Kalib] Thunderchief is bad in any way, but Colton brings a lot of speed and despite coming back from an injury, he’s been going in the corners and taking hits and giving hits, and it’s great to see him come back and want to be in the lineup.”
Strachan agreed Kennedy brings some intangibles he wished more of his players would carry to the rink day in and day out.
“He wanted to play because he wasn’t letting the team go down in four-straight games,” Strachan said. “He is a fierce competitor and a player you can really count on.
“I wish some others had what he had to get the job done. Some of his teammates could learn something from his courage.”
The Sabres missed a few scoring chances down the stretch and you knew the Bearcats’ offence wouldn’t be in hibernation for much longer—and those missed opportunities came back to haunt the home side after Tront’s overtime heroics.
“He fought through a big hit [from Dan Usiski in the first] and then took that penalty [in retaliation], and then comes back and gets the game-winner,” Miller said of Tront.
“I played in Port Hope for two years and this is the first team where I felt that the whole team is close together,” he added. “We’re a really tight group, and I think being so close helps us win the close games like this.”
The other thing that cost the game for the Sabres—apart from Tront’s goal—was their power play.
The Sabres failed to convert on a 5-on-3 for a full 50 seconds in the third when Ryan Stokes and Tront took separate minors, with the best chance actually going to the Bearcats on a Pawlowski breakaway when he picked off a neutral-zone pass.
“The power play is awful in plain English,” Strachan lamented.
“Last week we switched it up and tried to simplify it,” he noted. “[But] bottom line is if the players don’t make good decisions, good passes, and step their game up a notch when we get a man advantage, we are not going to have success.”
The Sabres were just too cute with the puck and not decisive enough when breaking out of their own end while a man up.
“We tried different break-outs, but they [the Bearcats] have a very good penalty kill and they like to force us,” Baumgartner agreed. “But we just have to have better support on the puck, and we’ve got to find a way to score and do whatever it takes.
“They pressure a lot and sometimes guys hesitate too much,” Baumgartner added. “You’ve got to make quicker passes and catch them off guard.”
The Sabres had nabbed their first win of the series with a 3-1 victory Saturday night after losing the first two games in Thunder Bay.
Dyck opened the scoring when he chipped a rebound into the open cage after Kyle Turgeon threw a shot on net from the corner with 40 seconds left in the first.
“That was our game plan, just to get everything on net,” Turgeon explained. “We didn’t have enough shots on the Bearcats in their home rink [in Games 1 and 2], and we did it pretty good [Saturday] and got some greasy goals to go in.”
Baumgartner added to the lead with an even-strength marker 5:22 into the second.
Chris Kitt got the Bearcats within one early in the third when he converted a cross-crease pass from Miller, but Mario Boivin iced the win with an empty-netter from centre ice in the final minute.
Logan McDonell left the bench after the final buzzer to come to the aid of Sabres’ captain Chris Sinclair, but the decision also cost Strachan a game behind the bench as he was forced to watch Sunday night’s match-up from the press box.
The Sabres came out flying with a physical style on Saturday—no better exemplified than by a hard hit on Pawlowski by Turgeon on his opening shift.
“I try to get under his skin, and it’s always good to bang him because he gets off his game,” Turgeon noted.
The Bearcats’ emotions boiled over in the final minute as Pawlowski looked to spear his stick towards the Sabres’ bench after a neutral-zone face-off and then was sent off for getting his stick up into the face of Turgeon with 20 seconds to go.
“They tried doing stuff at the end because they knew they could get away with it,” Turgeon said.
But the Sabres seemed to get away from their hard forechecking style in Game 4 on Sunday night, which was something that paid immediate dividends in their lone win of the series so far.
“We know they’re skilled up front, but we have to take control of their ‘D’ and start banging them and forcing turnovers,” Turgeon stressed. “That’s their weak spot.”
Game 6, if necessary, goes tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice for Kids Arena, with a possible Game 7 set for Saturday night back in Thunder Bay.
“Crowds were awesome both games,” Strachan enthused. “Loud and into the hockey, [and] it was very nice to see from our side of things.
“We hope we can bring them a Game 6 because they deserve it,” he added.
In the other SIJHL semi-final, the Fort William North Stars lead the Schreiber Diesels 3-2 in their best-of-seven series after winning Game 5 Monday night 6-3. They’ll look to wrap up a berth in the SIJHL Bill Salonen Cup final tonight.
Schreiber, meanwhile, has an automatic bye to the Dudley Hewitt Cup they are hosting April 21-25.
