THUNDER BAY – When crunch time came on Friday night, the Lakehead Thunderwolves crumbled.
The Wolves, playing their regular season home-opener, couldn’t hold a two-goal, second-period lead, surrendered four straight and dropped a 5-3 decision to the visiting Windsor Lancers at Fort William Gardens.
Connor Matton, Anthony Salinitri and Brennan Feasey, into the empty net, had third period goals against the Thunderwolves and goaltender Nic Renyard to turn things around for the Lancers, who trailed 2-1 after one and 3-2 after two periods of play.
It was a disappointing finish, said Lakehead forward Daniel Del Paggio.
“I don’t know,” said Del Paggio, who picked up an assist on Josh Laframboise’s first-period, shorthanded goal 1:56 into the OUA contest.
“We weren’t disciplined, got frustrated. Our structure was working all night and in the third we decided to not really stick to it, weren’t disciplined with our structural game and it cost us. They’re a really good team and you give them an inch and they’ll score.”
Laframboise said the game was well in hand – until it wasn’t.
“It sucks losing that way. You play hard for the first 40 minutes of the game. Going into the third period with the lead, you should expect yourself to win the game. We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit there and they capitalized on their power play and we missed a couple of good chances late. Sometimes you’ve just got to keep an even keel,” said Laframboise, his goal his fourth in six games.
Thunderwolves coach Andrew Wilkins said it was a missed opportunity for points.
“Once we were executing structure, we were playing well,” said Wilkins, whose skaters outshot the Lancers 46-42.
“There are obviously ups and downs in a game and I thought when we were getting away from what was making us successful (it hurt). But then, we took a couple of bad penalties in the third and I thought there was some frustration in the second period that stemmed over to the third period as well.”
Laframboise struck first, roofing a breakaway shot past Windsor goalie Jonathan Reinhart while down a body for too many men on the ice.
“We were on the penalty kill and we were pressing hard in our d-zone and Del (Paggio) makes good saucer pass over the d-man’s stick and it gave me a breakaway. I just saw top blocker and I just beat the goalie,” Laframboise said.
Greg Smith doubled the lead at 5:30 of the first, but Alex Friesen cut it back in half at 14:41.
Lakehead regained a two-goal edge midway through the second, when Kyle Auger leapt off the bench and managed to keep the puck in the Windsor zone.
The rookie blue-liner shoved the pass ahead to Tomas Soustel, who buried the puck in the Windsor net to make it 3-1.
Windsor’s Ryan Barbosa waited just over two minutes to get the Lancers back within a goal, setting up the decisive third.
Renyard made 35 stops in taking the loss for Lakehead (3-3-0). Reinhart was good on 42 of 45 shots he faced.
The two teams play again on Saturday night. Game time is 7 p.m.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Thunder Bay, Laframboise 4 (Del Paggio, Egan) 1:53 sh. 2. Lakehead, Smith 1 (Murphy, Leitch) 5:30. 3. Windsor, Friesen (Feasey) 14:41. Penalties: Bench minor LAK (too many men, served by Gall) 1:26, Gall TB (high sticking) 17:59.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: Lakehead, Soustal (Auger, Laframboise) 11:13. 5. Windsor, Barbosa (Assad) 13:41. Penalties: Fox WSR (slashing) 6:29, Fox WSR (unsportsmanlike conduct) 17:14,
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 6. Windsor, Matton (Salinitri, Ruddy) 1:57. 7. Windsor, Salinitri (Skinner, Wesley) 10:55. 8. Windsor, Feasey 1 (Ruddy) 18:29. Penalties: Egan LAK (slashing) 9:38, Assad WSR (unsportsmanlike conduct, roughing) 11:06, Auger LAK (roughing), Skinner WSR (unsportsmanlike conduct), Ruddy WSR (unsportsmanlike conduct), Soustal LAK (unsportsmanlike conduct, elbowing) 11:32, Dempster LAK (hooking) 13:06.
GAME DATA – SOG – Windsor 16-11-15-42, Lakehead 16-18-11-45; Power plays (goals-chances) – Windsor (1-5), Lakehead (0-4); Goaltenders – Windsor: Jonathan Reinhart, Lakehead: Nic Renyard; A: 1,800.
