Sabres ring in new year with road sweep

Last weekend saw some late New Year’s fireworks for the Fort Frances Jr. Sabres as they rung in 2008 with a pair of wins over the Thunder Bay Bulldogs, including the team’s first-ever shutout.
The Sabres blanked the cellar-dwelling Bulldogs 2-0 on Saturday night before Sunday afternoon’s wild 7-5 win.
“Our goal going into the weekend was to get four points. It’s probably a team we should beat,” Sabres’ head coach Wayne Strachan noted.
“We have to start preparing for the playoff run now and solidify our spot in fourth place,” he stressed.
With just a couple of team skates since the long holiday break, the Sabres still were the least rusty of the two teams Saturday night. Goalie Ryan Faragher’s shutout came on just 15 shots in the match that was scoreless until left-winger Quinn Amiel netted a pair of third-period goals.
“I think Ryan played very good in the game,” Strachan said.
“If you were to have see the game, probably the first two periods were pretty boring and uneventful,” Strachan admitted. “But he [Faragher] had to come up with some key saves and Quinn Amiel came up with a couple great individual efforts and scored a couple goals to help us win.”
Faragher said he was confident of the win, but wasn’t sure he’d earn the goose egg.
“The shots that they did have were normally point blank or on two-on-ones,” he recalled. “It was definitely a harder win because the less shots I had, the more I had to make them.”
While Strachan was more impressed with the team effort Sunday, he was less than pleased by the back-and-forth nature of the game. The Sabres got into a hole early—trailing 3-0 before finding a way back into the match.
“I think, to be honest, we slept for a period-and-a-half and they capitalized on three of their chances,” Strachan said.
Seemingly unbeatable Saturday night, Faragher was pulled after allowing the first three goals on just 16 shots Sunday afternoon.
“We pulled him and we put Dave [Novak] in, and it just seemed like the team changed,” Strachan said, noting the squad scored on the next shift before netting four-straight more.
“Then we sat back again and let them back into the game,” he added.
Novak and the Sabres (11-14-3-3) allowed the Bulldogs (4-20-3-0) to tie the game with two goals before Mike Ainsworth notched the game-winner.
Amiel iced the win with an empty-netter.
“We came away with four points, which was our goal, but you could tell it was the first week after Christmas, that’s for sure,” Amiel laughed.
“That seems to be our problem in every series we play,” he noted. “We get the first win and we don’t show up for the second game, and they come out wanting it a lot more.
“We gotta get it in our heads that it’s a hundred times tougher in the second game,” he stressed.
“I don’t think they should’ve had five goals on us,” Ainsworth added. “We’re a better team than that defensively.”
Faragher agreed, and said it “definitely” was hard to get pulled a day after recording the first shutout in franchise history.
“This weekend wasn’t our best effort but we did get the four points,” he said.
Amiel led the team with four goals and an assist to remain second in the SIJHL scoring race (12 points behind Dryden’s Colin McIntosh) while Ainsworth contributed two goals and a pair of assists.
Also scoring for the Sabres on Sunday were Chris Sinclair, Brendan Baumgartner, and Colin Spencer.
The Sabres will have some work to do before they host the Fort William North Stars this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Tomorrow (Jan. 10) marks the league’s final roster deadline—meaning the players who suit up against the North Stars will be the roster Fort Frances takes into the playoffs come March.
Strachan has spent time evaluating his options and has been pursuing moves to shore up the Sabres’ weak points.
“I think, for the most part, we can score with anybody. Obviously we proved that [Sunday] scoring seven goals,” he said.
“It doesn’t seem like we’re short of firepower, but I think we need to take a lot more pride in our defensive game as a team,” he added. “We’re not far behind, we just make little mistakes. . . .
“If we keep working hard in practice and paying attention to the details we have to, we’ll be all right by the end of the year,” Strachan continued.
Fort Frances also will need to get into top game shape with their next four games coming against the second-place North Stars and third-place Thunder Bay Bearcats—two tough teams the Sabres have beaten in the past.
Strachan is looking for the team to do well, imposing a goal to improve their record to .500 by the end of January.
That means winning at least five of their next seven against some strong opponents.
“It’s going to be tough,” Strachan admitted of the next two series. “They’re two teams that are ahead of us, [but] it’s two teams we’ve beat before and have played well against them.
“It should be some exciting hockey.”
The rest of the team also stressed the need to work hard and bring their best against the fallen Stars (22-8-0-2), who have lost their grip atop the SIJHL standings and fallen off the CJAHL’s most recent top 15 national rankings.
“They’re a good team, lots of offence, so we’re gonna have to shut down their players,” Ainsworth said.
Amiel said one of the keys to topping Fort William and breaking out in January is to take the kind of pride in defence Strachan talked about. The assistant captain said the Sabres “relied too much on goaltenders” in the Bulldogs’ series.
“It’s gonna take 22 players on this team” to go 7-2 in January, he warned.