The Thunder Bay North Stars are the only team to beat the Fort Frances Lakers in regulation this season.
It happened again on Wednesday night at Fort William Gardens.
Brad Thrower and Avery Siau staked the Stars to a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes and the North Stars went on to beat the No. 5-ranked Lakers 4-2, the fourth time in seven meetings between the two teams they’ve come out on top.
The shutout loss snapped an eight-game winning streak by the Lakers (25-4-1), their last loss coming on Nov. 28, a 3-0 defeat at the hands of the North Stars.
Brad Arabia, who had a goal and an assist in the win for the home side, said it’s not hard to get up for a game against the Lakers, who have just five losses in total this season, four at the hands of Thunder Bay.
“It’s our mindset. We know Fort Frances is a good team. They play hard, but we all want to prove to ourselves and to everybody that we can compete with anyone in the league and it doesn’t matter what the rankings say,” Arabia said.
“We’ll give it our best and always put on a good show.”
It was Thunder Bay’s third straight win on home ice and concluded a sweep of their most recent home-stand.
It’s good to be on a roll, Arabia added, especially after losing to Dryden on the road 8-1 to start the new year.
“It just shows what kind of team we have to bounce back with three straight wins, especially against Fort. They’re ranked fifth in the country, so it shows you what we can do, when we want to do it,” Arabia said.
Coach Jeremy Adduono took a slightly more cautious approach about his team’s good fortune.
“It’s a good win tonight, we’ll take the two points, but we’re going to have to prepare because we’re going (to Fort Frances) on Friday and they’re going to be ready.”
The turning point of the game came early in the third.
Kenny Turner and Avery Siau were each penalized in the final five seconds of the middle stanza and the Stars faced a daunting two-man disadvantage for the opening two minutes of the third.
To make matters worse, Thrower drew another minor 21 seconds into the period.
The Stars (14-16-2) killed off the first two penalties, Andrew Willner finally beating Riley Corbin at the 2:18 mark on a low shot that sailed through traffic untouched.
But rather than let the goal get them down, the North Stars responded. Four minutes later Thunder Bay captain Kenny Turner was hauled down on a partial breakaway. With a delayed penalty pending, Arabia followed up, pounced on the rebound and shoveled it one-handed over Pierce Dushenko’s left shoulder for a 3-1 North Stars lead.
“The easy one went in after all those great shots,” Arabia said.
While Adduono would have preferred they not put themselves in that position in the first place, he credited his players’ mettle for not wilting under the pressure.
“We can’t retaliate and we can’t put ourselves in a position when we’re playing well – we had a 2-0 lead and most of the momentum. You give Fort a 5-on-3 chance, you can’t really like your odds there,” Adduono said.
“But I still think our kill did a great job. I think we probably blocked five or six shots on the kill and they didn’t actually score until the 5-on-4. The thing I was most proud of was we didn’t let it get us down.”
Kris Hamlin iced it late in the third rifling a backhand that knocked Dushenko’s water bottle off the top of the net. Roshen Jaswal added a power play goal for the Lakers in the final minute of the game.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Thunder Bay, Thrower 9 (Newhouse, Muir) 1:53. 2. Thunder Bay, Siau 9 (Thrower, Gillis) 11:46 pp. Penalties: Tymkin FF (slashing) 4:09, Uhryniuk FF (high sticking) 10:21, Hamlin TB (holding) 13:05, Robertson FF (hooking) 15:38,
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: None. Penalties: Bosman FF (cross checking) 9:32, Zajicek FF (slashing) 15:00, Turner TB (tripping) 19:55, Siau TB (unsportsmanlike conduct) 20:00.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 3. Fort Frances, Willner 12 (Minerva, Jaswal) 2:18, pp. 4. Thunder Bay, Arabia 11 (Turner) 6:41. 5. Thunder Bay, Hamlin 10 (Arabia) 17:49 pp. 6. Fort Frances, Jaswal (Chorney) 19:44 pp. Penalties: Thrower TB (high sticking) 0:21, Chorney FF (cross checking) 3:12, Ward TB (hooking) 12:23, Ripley FF (tipping) 16:20, Glowatch TB (holding) 18:22.
GAME DATA – SOG – Fort Frances 9-12-10-31 Thunder Bay 19-14-14-47; Power plays (goals-chances) – Fort Frances (1-6), Thunder Bay (2-7); Goaltenders – Fort Frances: Pierce Dushenko, Thunder Bay: Riley Corbin. A: 200 (estimated).
