Joey Payeur
For a guy coming off a natural hat trick, Matt Tustin’s demeanour was far from cheerful.
The Fort Frances Lakers’ forward was more concerned with his team’s poor effort in the first 20 minutes, when the Dryden GM Ice Dogs stormed out to a 4-0 lead before holding on for a 5-4 win in SIJHL action here Tuesday night.
“In the first period, we just weren’t ready to go and the last two, we were,” noted Tustin, who nearly brought his team back single-handedly with his three-straight goals over the second and third period that turned a 5-1 game into an unexpected nail-biter.
“We win 4-1 if you cancel the first period.
“You can’t blame any one guy,” Tustin added. “We win as a team and lose as a team.”
Tustin said the Lakers (2-8-1-2) got an earful from head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan between periods that sparked the turnaround, but was upset the strongly-worded message was even necessary.
“Wayne shouldn’t have to come in here and fire us up. It’s not the first game of the season,” stressed Tustin, whose team now has lost its past four outings.
“That is our job to do.”
Dryden (9-2-1) led 3-0 after Eric Stout, Tristan Knott, and Garrett Graham all scored by the 8:29 mark of the first period to send Lakers’ starter Billy Gorn to the bench with just six saves in favour of Brandon Bodnar.
Stout beat Bodnar at 15:34, then notched his league-leading 18th of the season to make it 5-1 in the second just over a minute after Dylan Kooner had put the Lakers on the board.
Tustin scored twice in just over three minutes in the latter stages of the second, then crafted a spectacular hat-trick goal on the power play at 6:02 of the third.
The speedy forward split a seam between Ice Dogs’ defencemen Regan Regimbald and Zac Schlitt before walking in to beat Ben Dennis with a deke to the backhand.
Dennis got the hook himself, with Patrick Zubick coming on in relief after beating the Lakers 4-2 here just three nights earlier.
Despite Tustin’s heroics, the Lakers generated little in the way of scoring chances.
“Our puck movement was a problem, whether it was on the break-out or in their zone,” noted Strachan.
“When we did move the puck, we created opportunities, but we just weren’t consistent and ended up leaving guys to do it all by themselves.”
“We needed to get shots on them with a cold goalie coming in,” Tustin said.
“There’s no excuse. They picked their intensity up after (Zubick) came in.”
The Ice Dogs kept the puck in the Lakers’ end in the final minute to give the home squad no chance to pull Bodnar for an extra attacker.
“Dryden pressured us hard and bottled us up,” said Strachan.
“At the end of a game with a one-goal lead, that’s what you want.
“I’m a little disappointed that we played two pretty good games over the weekend and thought we had made strides and coming a team,” he added.
“In the first, we were lifeless,” Strachan noted. “It didn’t look like guys wanted to be here.
“We keep shooting ourselves in the foot,” he remarked.
“The guys have to realize what it takes to win hockey games in this league and at this level.”
Meanwhile, the list of walking wounded grew larger for a Lakers’ team already down five regulars as forward Matt Cheetham left the game with an undisclosed injury.
The Lakers next host the last-place Minnesota Iron Rangers (2-8) tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
“We really need this win,” stressed Tustin.
“We’re off the rest of the weekend, so there’s no excuse not to empty the tank and get a victory in front of the home crowd.”
