By Gary Moskalyk
A pair of storied franchises square off beginning Saturday, April 8 in Dryden.
The Thunder Bay North Stars enter the semi-finals against the Ice Dogs injury free.
“All season we haven’t had a healthy line-up until just recently. Last game (against Red Lake) was the second game all year we’ve had 20 kids,” said North Stars head coach Rob DeGagne. “We’ve had call-ups and so on and so forth, but the first time we’ve had 20 rostered players that can play.”
The North Stars defeated Red Lake in five games, and then waited for the Sioux Lookout/Wisconsin series to play out to see who they would play in the SIJHL semi-finals.
Conner Lemieux is fully healthy and Keenan Marks is coming off a 50-save shutout. Lemieux is expected to do most of the heavy lifting for Thunder Bay. Dryden and Wisconsin used Eric Clark and Kyler Lowden respectively in the playoffs. Kam River is expecting to lean on Eric Vanska.
Lemieux stands at 2.98 GAA with a .936 SV% through three playoff games and is considered the number one netminder. Marks’ GAA is 1.00 and his save percentage is .977. Combined, the Stars are allowing 2.19 goals against, are stopping the puck at a .951 clip.
“It’s a good problem to have. Both our goalies have played well,” said DeGagne.
Thunder Bay is 2-6-1 against Dryden in the regular season. The history of the two franchises runs deep.
“Dryden is definitely a different team than Kam River in the sense that they’re a little bigger and a little more physical,” said DeGagne. Our interview was conducted prior to Wisconsin’s seven-game series win over Sioux Lookout. “Dryden plays hard hockey. They’ve got a good powerplay (number one in regular season, 26.7%). We match well because we do have some bigger guys. We have a skilled bunch so hopefully our skill will help us in that series. Definitely a more physical team, they’re well coached, and they work hard.”
The Dryden powerplay didn’t skip a beat in the five-game win over Fort Frances. In fact, it was 6 for 11.
Thunder Bay was 17.6% with the man advantage against Red Lake, on par with their 17.5% rate in the regular season.
Nikolas Campbell led the Stars in playoff scoring with three goals and three assists against the Miners. Weeks and Colby Feist had four points each, while Jamie Fuchs was held to a goal.
There was plenty of scoring from other sources. EJ Paddington matched Campbell’s production. Nolan Desjardins and Magnus Pearson also had five points, and Easton Glousher and Mason Wesley and three goals and an assist each.
“The young guys, they know their role but they’ve come to play and they’ve been a big part of our scoring in the last series.,” said DeGagne “It’s nice to have that third or fourth line. Everybody’s scoring. Not so much just one or two guys. Everybody’s contributing and that goes a long way in the playoffs.”
Wesley is more known for his police work than scoring goals.
“Mason’s is more known as a physical player, but he’s been getting his opportunities and making the most of them,” said DeGagne. “It’s good to have some secondary scoring, that’s for sure.”
Thunder Bay allowed over 45 shots a game against with Red Lake.
“We’ve been playing a lot of run and gun hockey. We’re going to have to tighten up against Dryden that’s for sure.”
It will have been eight days since Thunder Bay last played when they hit the ice Saturday night against Dryden. Dryden will have had a similar lay off since their last game against Fort Frances.
“I like our situation, I like our players, I like what we have. We are definitely going to have to play good to win,” summarized DeGagne.
Dryden had impressive regular season numbers. Best powerplay, best penalty kill, second most goals and points–all pretty much meaningless in Dryden’s head coach Kurt Walsten’s eyes.
“All that stuff, when the playoffs start, it means absolutely nothing. Did we have a good regular season stats wise? Yeah, we’re a pretty solid team. . . We can roll four lines at you. We’re the biggest team in the league. We can play the game any way the other team wants to play it.”
Landen Stromme led the Ice Dogs in playoff scoring with eight points in five playoff games. James Hooton (3-4-7), captain Brady Frattinger (4-2-6), Ben Hackl (2-4-6), Jordan Pfoh (2-4-6), Max Roby (1-5-6) and McLaren Paulsen (4-1-5) all average a point a game or better against the Lakers. Bryce Benfield played in one game and had two goals and two assists in his return.
Depth has been a Dryden trademark all season long.
“With us, go ahead and shut down Frattinger. We have three centremen averaging a point a game,” said Walsten.
Paulsen and Benfield had a shorthanded goals–another Dryden trademark. The Ice Dogs had 17 of them in the regular season.
Eric Clark played 300 minutes in net, posting a 2.60 goals against and .907 SV%. Zac MacDonald waits in the wings should he falter.
Dryden scored 32 goals and allowed 13 against Fort. The Ice Dogs are 7-2-0 against Thunder Bay this year.
“We’re glad where we finished,” said Walsten, who saw his team finish second, with a 35-17-1 record, .708 winning percentage, and +80 on the season. “It’s where we wanted to finish. We didn’t want to sit out weeks and not be playing.”
Look for a tough physical series. Game one is Saturday night. Game two is Sunday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. Dryden time. Both tilts are at the Dryden Memorial Arena. Games three and four are at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay on April 11 and 15.