On Thursday morning Thunder Bay North Stars coach Lonny Bohonos wasn't sure Brennen Dubchak would even make the lineup later that night.
But Bohonos liked what he saw from the Kenora native, who spent seven weeks in a cast nursing a broken ankle and hadn't played since Feb. 1, a 4-0 win over the eventual Superior International Junior Hockey League champion Wisconsin Wilderness.
The coach's instinct proved correct.
Dubchak, a waif of a player who stands just 5-foot-7 and weighs in at 150 pounds, took a beauty of a pass from Matt Alexander with six-and-a-half to go in regulation to tie the game 3-3. Then in overtime he crashed the net like a player twice his size, and backhanded home a Matt Kaarela rebound at 14:12. The 4-3 win vaulted the the Stars, who dropped one-goal decisions on each of the first two nights of the tournament, into the Dudley Hewitt Cup semifinals where they'll take on the Sault Ste. Marie Thunderbirds at Fort William Gardens on Friday night.
"I was surprised," said Dubchak, a 16-goal scorer in the regular season, not one of them a game-winner. "I just tried to play it simple. At the start I was a little sketchy at passing, but once I got in the groove of things, I ended up doing all right.
"I give a lot of credit to my teammates. That was a nice pass from Alexander (in regulation) and Kaarela made that whole play. I was just there to put the icing on the cake, I guess."
Bohonos said the first-year Dubchak showed he belonged and worked hard to get back into playing shape.
After dropping a pair of games to open the tournament, and playing a team that beat the Stars 12 times in 14 meetings during the regular season and playoffs, including a four-game sweep in the second round of the postseason, Bohonos said he figured he had nothing to lose.
"I watched him practice today and he looked good out there, and sometimes you've just got to inject new life into the system. We lost two games and we make decisions every game, different ones, and we hope they work out," Bohonos said.
"And tonight our decisions we made worked out for us."
Not to be forgotten is the change in nets. Marc Nother, a finalist for SIJHL goalie of the year, didn't dress for Game 1 and sat on the bench in Wednesday's loss to Sault Ste. Marie.
Nother made 34 saves, none bigger than when he stuffed Wisconsin's Mike Dietrich on a wraparound attempt while laying on his back midway through the overtime frame.
That the Stars even made it that far was a testament to their power play – and came almost in spite of themselves after taking a remarkable eight penalties and surviving seven shorthanded situations in the first period alone.
Kaarela, a firecracker all night long, stole the puck from Wisconsin's Patrick Hurley, marched over the blue-line and beat SIJHL goalie of the year Tanner Milliron at 7:05 of the first, the shorthanded goal giving the Stars the early lead.
But the penalty parade proved too much to handle for Thunder Bay.
Hurley got his revenge, rifling a shot through traffic that targeted the mesh to tie the score on the power play at 17:13, then Dietrich put the Wilderness ahead, again with the man advantage, with 71 seconds to go in the opening stanza.
"Wisconsin's got a great power play, you know," Bohonos said. "And we know that. We can't give them that many opportunities on the power play. It was a good job for our PK. They could have got a lot more. I think it was just excitement. The guys were excited to play and sometimes they get too aggressive, their hands get up and their emotions get going.
"But after the first period they kind of settled down and didn't take as many penalties."
In fact, they took just three minors from that point on, Wisconsin the team finding itself in penalty trouble in the second, successfully killing off a pair of lengthy two-man disadvantages.
Meanwhile the Stars began to recapture their groove, at least temporarily.
Quinn Rempel slid a weak shot under Milliron early in the second to tie the game 2-2, the only goal of the middle frame.
Shane Topf wasted little time restoring the Wisconsin lead in the third, beating Nother at 2:49, but the Stars made the most of the six shots they took in the third, courtesy of Dubchak's timely equalizer with time ticking on Thunder Bay's season.
"We were on the verge tonight of getting knocked out or finishing in first place," Wisconsin coach Rod Aldoff said. "The ball was in our court and we didn't take care of it like we usually do or we could have."
Earlier in the day the Stoufville Spirit made easy work of the Thunderbirds, winning 10-2 to automatically advance to Saturday's final.
Star gazing: Thunder Bay's Tyler Osborne could have ended it early in OT, but hit the post with plenty of mesh showing ... Wisconsin captain Andrew Anderson left the game in the first and didn't return, following a tangle with Kaarela.
FIRST PERIOD:
Scoring: 1. Thunder Bay, Kaarela 1 (unassisted) 7:05 sh. 2. Wisconsin, Hurley (Hendrickson, Housley) 17:13 pp. 3. Wisconsin, Dietrich (Blaisdell, C. Anderson) 18:49. Penalties: Orosey TB (hooking) 1:04, Hendrickson WIS, Dubinsky TB (high sticking) 4:56, Prout TB (holding) 5:43, Osborne TB (cross checking) 8:03, Blaisdell WIS (interference) 11:54, Kaarela TB (high sticking) 14:52, Housley WIS (roughing) 15:00, Mascarin TB (roughing) 16:31, Kaarela TB (cross checking)17:28, Blacksmith (high sticking, misconduct, served by Orosey) 19:21.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 4. Thunder Bay, Rempel (Wolframe, Lapenskie) 3:50. Penalties: Kaarela TB (roughing) 8:58, Calabrese WIS (high stickking) 10:44, Hughes WIS (tripping) 13:15, Hendrickson WIS (cross checking) 13:29, Hurley WIS (tripping) 14:17.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 5. Wisconsin, Topf 2 (Calabrese, Rakas) 2:49. 6. Thunder Bay, Dubchak (Alexander, Nother) 13:32. Penalties: Blacksmith (hooking) TB 0:32, Drill WIS (goaltender interference) 6:02.
OVERTIME
Scoring: 7. Thunder Bay, Dubchak 2 (Kaarela) 14:12. Penalties: Rakas WIS (hooking), Dubchak TB (holding the stick) 4:54.
GAME DATA – SOG – Wisconsin 16-8-7-6-37, Thunder Bay 10-15-6-9-40; Power plays (goals-chances) – Wisconsin (2-11) Thunder Bay (0-6); Goaltenders – Wisconsin: Tanner Milliron, Thunder Bay: Marc Nother; A: 1,367.
