Mitch Fillman may not have played the Western Mustangs yet, but he knew long before he arrived in Thunder Bay there would likely be no more important regular season series for the Lakehead Thunderwolves.
The Wolves, fresh off a surprising 8-5 loss last Saturday to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, trail the Mustangs by two points heading into this weekend’s set at Fort William Gardens, likely needing to win three out of four remaining dates with the Mustangs to have any hope of capturing the OUA Far West Division.
Fillman, who played forward for most of his junior career before making the switch to the blue-line a year ago, said the mystique of the OUA’s most heated rivalry is what hockey’s all about.
“I know a guy on Western and even before I came up here, he said watch out for the rivalry between Lakehead and Western,” said Fillman, who spent parts of four campaigns with the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit before winding up in Grand Prairie most of last season.
“It’s a big two points here. We’re the two top teams in the division, but we kind of own our fate here for first place. It’s a huge weekend and a huge rivalry, so I think the guys are going to be up for it.”
With 17 points in 19 games, Fillman is among the top 10 scoring rearguards in the league, but after allowing 13 goals in two games to the division’s worst team, an increased focus on his own end is in order against the powerful Mustangs (16-2-2), who have allowed just 53 goals in 20 outings, two fewer than the Wolves (16-4-0), while scoring 91.
The Mustangs, who did not pay a visit to Thunder Bay last season, also boast the 40-point heroics of Keaton Turkiewicz, who leads all OUA scorers in goals and points. Kevin Baker is among the league’s top playmakers, and Tyler Peters and Thunder Bay’s Zach Harnden can also put the puck in the net with regularity.
It’s a lot to ask a defensive corps that may or may not have stalwart Kalvin Sagert back in action from concussion-like symptoms.
The Bobby Orr rushes may or may not be part of Fillman's repertoire on Friday night.
“I think you’ve always got to pick your opportunities when you go,” Fillman said. “We’ll have to judge it the first little bit of the game, see if they’re open, see if they forecheck hard. If there are openings, I’m going to rush it. If not, I’ll keep my game simple, chip it out and give it to the forwards.”
Teammate Adam Sergerie, the left winger on the Wolves top line, hopes to be the recipient of some of those passes.
Unlike Fillman, Sergerie has been through plenty of past encounters with the Mustangs, a team that holds a 31-22-1 record against the Wolves all-time.
He wants this one bad, he said.
“I think there’s only been one division championship in the 10, 11 years of the program. As players we’re kind of challenging ourselves that we want to make it a second one. But at the same time we know that there’s a lot of work ahead, not only this weekend.
“There’s still work to do after. We have to go back (to Western) for two games. We’re not looking too far ahead. This weekend’s big, and we put ourselves in a hole last weekend, so we’ve got to make sure we get the job done this weekend,” Sergerie said.
LU coach Joel Scherban, who played his junior hockey in London, Ont., home of the Mustangs, and even considered playing for them before deciding on Lakehead, said Western is the measuring stick the Thunderwolves go by each year.
He called last weekend uncharacteristic, and isn’t sure what went wrong in the defensive end.
“I don’t think we were guilty of looking ahead,” said Scherban, who should have high-scoring forward Ryan McDonald back in the lineup this weekend.
“I thought our guys probably thought they could rely on skill to win the games and we didn’t do the things we needed to do to win. We didn’t compete or battle hard enough and our commitment wasn’t there defensively.”
He thinks they got the message.
“I think our players understand how good Western in and how good we have to be playing against them and we know if we come out and we’re not focused 100 per cent and we’re not playing our best, we’re not going to beat Western. I’m not concerned about our players,” he said.
