North Stars fall short against visiting Ice Dogs

Playing catch-up against the Dryden Ice Dogs isn’t easy.

The Thunder Bay North Stars spent three periods on Friday night trying to even things up with the second-ranked team in the Superior International Junior Hockey League, but ran out of steam in the third period and were doubled up 6-3 at Fort William Gardens.

Only once did the Stars managed to net the equalizer, Nicholas Nigro connecting with a minute left in the first to tie the contest 1-1.

The Ice Dogs Tanner Watt and Braeden Allkins scored second-period markers to establish a two-goal lead and the closest the North Stars could get was to cut that lead in half, which they did twice before the visitors pulled away for good in the third.

“That was part of the problem. We had some momentum, we’d score a goal and then basically take a penalty and get back down again,” said assistant coach Doug Colbin, filling in for recently hired coach Jeremy Adduono, who was attending a wedding out of town.

“The flow just wasn’t there for us to get that one goal that we really needed.”

Penalties were the North Stars’ enemy as they slipped to 9-13-2. Not only did the Ice Dogs score three times on nine man advantages, by spending so much time in the box, Thunder Bay had a difficult time generating many scoring chances on Dryden goalie Taylor Unruh, who on Saturday leaves for Team West tryouts for the World Junior A Challenge, slated for Whitby, Ont. later this month.

“Maybe it was a little lack of discipline,” Colbin said. “We rolled four lines pretty good. I thought we were in the game for the most part, but you can’t give up that many power plays, especially against a team like Dryden who are a pretty experienced team, and expect your goaltending to keep you in the whole game.”

Nic Noseworthy, later tossed for a hit from behind, opened the scoring at 14:19 of the first, beating Riley Corbin with one North Star in the box and a delayed call making it a 6-on-4 situation.

Nigro tied it late in the period on the backhand, only to have Watt jump on a Derek McPhail rebound just 33 seconds into the middle stanza. Allkins spun and fired midway through the period, scoring from a tough angle to make it 3-1 for the visitors before Brad Arabia ripped a power-play wrist shot past Unruh, cutting the Dryden lead to one.

Troy Williams, who will join his goalie at the Team West camp, doubled the lead 1:08 into the third, again on the power play, taking a bank off the end boards to catch Corbin out of position and burying the puck into the open North Stars net.

Four minutes later Avery Siau responded for Thunder Bay, cutting through traffic untouched to and the puck behind Unruh.

But Braedyn Aubin had the answer at 9:02, the Ice Dogs taking their third two-goal lead of the game. Coley Rooney iced it with an empty netter in the final minute of regulation.

Dryden improved to 15-5-3 and will look for the weekend sweep when the two teams meet again at the Gardens on Saturday night.