OLIVER PAIPOONGE – The Thunder Bay North Stars may have been wearing green, but they had anything but the luck of the Irish on Saturday night.
In what they hope isn’t an indication of how they’ll play when the post-season opens on Monday night at Fort William Gardens, the Stars were shocked early and often by their forthcoming first-round opponent, the Minnesota Iron Rangers.
The Iron Rangers poured in four goals on Thunder Bay goaltender Dougie Newhouse, including three in a 93-second span, and went on to a 5-3 triumph at the NorWest Arena, just their second victory against the North Stars in 14 tries this in 2017-18.
Better to take a night off in a meaningless playoff tune-up than on Monday night when their best-of-five series begins, said Thunder Bay coach Rob DeGagne, whose team’s six-game winning streak came to a crashing halt on the final game of the regular season.
“It was a terrible period,” said DeGagne of the first. “It’s one of those games where you can’t win. It would be nice to win the game and get out with everybody clean. But you can’t spot a team four goals in any league and come back and try to win. It just doesn’t happen every night.”
The game was just 72 second old when the Iron Rangers showed they had no intentions of playing out the string.
Garrett Wojcicki struck first, beating Newhouse from behind the North Stars net.
Cody Hendrickson doubled the lead eight minutes later, netting his second of the season, the start of the barrage that would do Thunder Bay in.
Eli Kinsman scored back-to-back seven seconds apart, the first coming on the power play, the second a quick rush down the ice after the Iron Rangers won the ensuing faceoff.
The Stars settled down in the second, outshooting Minnesota 17-6 and putting a pair of pucks past Iron Rangers goaltender Tyler Thompson to cut the deficit in half.
Brendan Gillis potted his 20th of the season 1:14 into the middle stanza and Alex Maticic found the net for the 22nd time with 1:43 left in the period.
But another Minnesota goal in the first two minutes of a period swung any momentum the North Stars may have gained in the second back to the Iron Rangers to start the third, Joel Nagy beating Newhouse for his fifth of the year.
Troy Sherman got the goal back two minutes later, his quick shot fooling Thompson and the Iron Rangers lead was cut to 5-3.
However, Thunder Bay couldn’t convert when Minnesota’s Mihali See was assessed a pair of minors at the 7:11 mark, despite a pair of great chances off the stick of defenceman Kyle Auger that Thompson turned aside.
DeGagne pulled Newhouse with two minutes to go in regulation, but the Iron Rangers continued bottling up the middle and Thompson stood his ground, his toughest test a backhand from the slot by Ryan Mignault that buried in his chest.
Hendrickson had a chance to put it away, but rung the puck off the post of the North Stars unguarded net.
The two teams will open their best-of-five series on Monday at Fort William Gardens at 7:30 p.m. Game 2 goes Tuesday.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: Minnesota, Wojcicki (See, Sturko) 1:12. 2. Minnesota, Hendrickson (Litke, Horn) 9:09. 3. Kinsman (Horn, Nagy) 10:35 pp. 4. Minnesota, Kinsman (Sanchez, Birkeand) 10:42. Penalties: Santin TB (spearing) 10:30, Siau TB (spearing, misconduct), Nagy MIR (slashing, misconduct) 11:22, Scott MIN (roughing) 15:04.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 5. Thunder Bay, Gillis 20 (Santin, Muir) 1:16. 6. Thunder Bay, Maticic 22 (Siau) 18:17. Penalties: Sanchez MIN (holding) 18:40.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 7. Minnesota, Nagy (Birkeland, Sanchez) 1:14. 8. Thunder Bay, Sherman 14 (Erwin, Muir) 3:12. Penalties: Koivunen MIN (roughing), Smith TB (boarding) 6:03, See MIN (roughing, unsportsmanlike conduct, misconduct) 7:11, Litke MIN (hooking) 10:53,
GAME DATA – SOG – Minnesota 14-6-9-23, Thunder Bay 7-17-12-36; Power plays (goals-chances) – Minnesota (1-1), Thunder Bay (0-5); Goaltenders – Minnesota: Tyler Thompson; Thunder Bay: Dougie Newhouse; A: 280.
