By Gary Moskalyk
Kenora 2-29-1 5 pts .078 8th GF 63 GA 218 -155 PIMs 877 PP% 9.1 PK% 69.9 at Red Lake 22-12-2 46 pts .639 5th GF 161 GA 99 +62 PIMs 649 PP% 22.0 PK% 88.1 Tuesday
Head to head: KEN 0.6.0 RLM 6.0.0
Kenora enters Week 19 with a week off under their belt. Tuesday’s game completes the seven game regular season head-to-head match-ups.
The Islanders took one against the North Stars and battled for most of the game against Fort Frances (up 4-2 through 40 minutes, before losing 7-4). Goalie Matt Stephens, architect of the Islanders 3-1 win against Thunder Bay, noted that the team had a lot more confidence after the Thunder Bay win. There will be tough losses ahead, but the team has turned a corner.
Aaron Bertschinger continues to lead the team in scoring with 14 goals and 14 assists. John Paul Scaringi has a 6G/16A split, and Brayden Mackay has eight goals and 13 assists for 21 points. Braden Swampy leads the d-corps offensively with 15 points and an impressive nine goals, tied with Dayvan Bull of the Bombers.
Stephens leads the Kenora goalies with .901 save percentage and 984 minutes played. He has secured all five of Kenora’s points. Kaden King has 503 minutes and Connor Dunham-Fox has 341.
Kenora’s power play is at 9.1 percent and the penalty kill dipped below 70 percent with a 69.9 percent score. The Islanders lead the SIJHL in penalty minutes with 900 and average 27.3 PIMs per game.
Red Lake is coming off a pair of tough one-goal regulation losses against first place Sioux Lookout. The Miners have a goal differential of +62 and have allowed 99 goals in 36 games. They’re one of two teams below 100 goals allowed (Sioux Lookout is the other at 84).
Aiden Corbett carries the torch offensively, with 24 goals and 23 helpers, good for 5th in league scoring. Luke DeCorby has 32 points. Noah Tenney and defenceman/forward Gabe Tanton have 29 points each. Nathan Dann, who last played on January 12th, has 18 goals and 10 assists in his 22 games. Defenceman Blake Hiltermann has 28 points–4th in league scoring among rearguards. Carter Deschamps, 21, rookie Ethan Cerone, 18, Landon van Engelen, 18, and mid-season acquisition Ryker Watt, 17, round out the top offensive threats.
Ethan Neitsch has a .500 record (7-7-2) in his 979 minutes, despite a 2.33 GAA and .934 SV%. Noah Davis is 9-3-0 in 747 minutes played and newcomer Jackson Pundyk has two wins in three appearances in his 140 minutes.
Red Lake’s powerplay is 22.0% and the penalty kill leads the league at 88.1%.
The Miners have drawn 649 penalty minutes, for an average of 18.0. The league dipped below 20 minutes per game, with an average of 19.9.
Thunder Bay 24-10-3 51 pts .689 4th GF 159 GA 115 +44 PIMs 586 PP% 18.8 PK% 82.7 at Kam River 26-9-1 53 pts .736 2nd GF 174 GA 107 +67 PIMs 757 PP% 26.6 PK% 80.4 Friday
Head to head: TBN 2.3.0 KRW 3.1.1
Thunder Bay’s last game was January 28th. With the week off and their closest competitors winning, the Stars dropped to 4th place, one point behind Dryden and two behind the Fighting Walleye.
Edison Weeks leads the league in points with 57 (21G, league-leading 36A). EJ Paddington eclipsed his points total from last year about a decade ago (November) and has 51 (21G 30A). Owen Riffel of Sioux Lookout sent Easton Mikus down a notch to 4th place in league scoring. Mikus has 48 points (24G 24A).
Tyler Jordan leads the SI in game winning goals with six, and has 23 overall with 16 helpers and 39 points. Dimitri Trahiotis is next on the depth chart with nine goals and 17 assists. Rookie Cohen Tangedal, defencemen Drew Caddo and Cameron Dial, Beau Helmeczi and Keagan Jones have 19, 19, 19, 18 and 16 points respectively.
Keenan Marks is 13 minutes off the league lead in net time with 1,369 minutes. Marks is second in wins with 16 (16-7-1). His goals against is 2.94 with a save percentage of .910. Ben Laurette has won all three of his starts and sports a 2.33 GAA and .916 SV%.
Thunder Bay has an 18.8% powerplay and 82.7% powerplay. The Stars have 586 penalty minutes, one less than Sioux Lookout, and they average 15.8 minutes in the bin, just a tad less than Sioux Lookout’s 15.9.
Kam River stayed in second place with a pair of weekend wins over Wisconsin on February 2nd and 3rd.
The top offensive club in the league (174 goals) is five points behind Sioux Lookout with a game in hand.
Jett Mintenko leads the team in scoring with 44 points (17G 27A) in 34 games, good for 6th in the league. Jeremy Dunmore is 9th in league production with 40 points on 21 goals and 19 helpers. Riley Borody has 39 points (12G-27A) in 29 games. Rookie Nickolas Fagnilli has 17 goals and 38 points. Ryan Doucette is one of five Fighting Walleye averaging over a point a game with 34 in 30 games.
Rookie Carter Poddubny has 17 goals and 16 assists for 33 points and sits 19th in league scoring. Fagnilli joined Poddubny atop the league rankings with 11 powerplay markers.
Defenceman Brydon Bell is second among SIJHL defencemen with 30 points. Kaden Goodwin, 25, defenceman Liam Bell, 23, Braeden Duchesne, 22, d-man Edwin Liang, 19, and Matteo Salvatore, 16, are next in line.
Ashton Sadauskas leads the league with 20 wins and 1,382 minutes in net. Travis VanderZwaag is 6-6-1 in his 14 starts.
Kam River had the league’s best powerplay at 26.6%. The penalty kill is 80.4%.
The Walleye average 21.0 minutes in the penalty box per game.
Fort Frances 8-24-5 21 pts .284 7th GF 103 GA 168 -65 PIMs 774 PP% 14.1 PK% 80.0 at Red Lake
Head to head: FFL 0.5.0 RLM 5.0.0
Fort Frances picked up a hard earned point against a hot Dryden club over the weekend. The Lakers are six points behind Wisconsin for 6th place–although the Lumberjacks have three games in hand.
Clark Scaddan has 32 points with 14 goals. Jack Wood (11G 17A), Brady Krentz (12G 14A), Brody Lindal (14G 11A) are in the SIJHL top-40. Rookie Pierce Gouin has 15 points as does Magnus Pearson.
Jack Orchard is among the league leaders in net time with 1,235. Orchard is 4-15-2/4.32/.898. Lukas Toth, 2-7-1 699 minutes, and Gunner Paradis, 2-2-1 302 minutes, are other net options.
The Lakers power play is at 14.1% while the penalty kill is an even 80.0%. Fort Frances averages 20.9 penalty minutes per game.
Kenora at Wisconsin 11-18-5 27 pts .397 6th GF 119 GA 163 -44 PIMs 668 PP% 16.7 PK% 78.6 Fri/Sat
Head to head: KEN 1.3.0 WIS 3.0.1
Wisconsin lost a squeaker and a shootout against second place Kam River last weekend, scoring eight goals against one of the better defensive teams in the league.
Dillon Phillips has 11 points in his last four games to place him 10th in league scoring. He’s one of 20 SIJHL players at a point a game with 1.18 over the course of the season based on 17 goals and 23 assists in 34 games. He’s played in all 34 Lumberjacks games so far.
Nolan Fowler has 27 points in his 27 games with 17 goals. Defenceman Ryan Kayser has a 7G/18A split in his 34 games. Rookie Collin Baker and Kaden Postal both have 19 points, rookie defenceman Connor Corcoran and rookie Koen Burkholder have 16 points each.
In net, Riley Burnett and William Forrester tend goal. Burnett and Freshwater are rookies. Forrester has been there all season long. Burnett has appeared in six games including his first one on December 16th. Both are close according to their goals against averages. Burnett is 4.57 and Forrester 4.85.
On special teams, Wisconsin has a 16.7% success rate on the powerplay and 78.6% rating on the penalty kill.
The Lumberjacks have amassed 668 penalty minutes with an average of 19.6 minutes per game in the penalty box.
Sioux Lookout 27-6-4 58 pts .784 1st GF 149 GA 84 +65 PIMs 587 PP% 22.3 PK% 87.1 at Dryden 25-13-2 52 pts .650 3rd GF 150 GA 121 +29 PIMs 847 PP% 22.6 PK% 79.3 Friday
Head to head: SLB 4.1.1 DRY 2.3.1
Sioux Lookout is on a four-game points streak playing against a Dryden team with an eight-game winning streak. Owen Riffel is third in league scoring and is leading the league with 27 goals. Connor Burke has 42 points and 22 goals, and Blake Burke has 41 points and 16 goals.
Dayvan Bull leads all defenceman with 36 points and is the only rearguard in the top-20 (16th). Defenceman Nolan Palmer has 25 points, Cobe Delaney has 24, and Jonah Smith has 24. Owen Cotter and Tait Howell have 21 and 17 points respectively.
The Bombers have allowed 84 goals in their 37 games for an average of 2.27 per game. Jack Osmond is 14-5-2 in his 1,258 minutes and goalie-of-the-month for January Matthew Spencer-Dahl is 8-1-0 with 1.63 GAA and .954 SV% in his 738 minutes. Matthew Ofukany is 4-0-0 in his 240 minutes.
Sioux Lookout has a 22.3% powerplay and an 87.1% penalty kill.
The Bombers tally an average of 15.9 minutes in the box.
Dryden’s eight-game winning streak includes James Hooton’s five games since returning. Hooton was shut out against Fort Frances last game, but did score in the shootout which the Ice Dogs eventually won. Max Roby and McLaren Paulsen are two of the 20-goal snipers in the SIJHL. Both have 21. Roby has 18 assists for 39 points and Paulsen has 16 assists for 37 points.
Carson Devine has played in all games and has 14 goals and 14 assists. Sean Smith has 28 points, also in 40 games. Bryce Benfield is set to return in five more games. He’s at 27 points in 22 games. Ryland Maier has 12 goals and 11 assists for 23 points. Defencemen Sebastiano Biagi and Tag Bryson are next in team production with 23 and 20 points.
In net, Ewan Soutar is healthy and productive with a 13-6-1 record, 2.29 goals against and .928 save percentage would attest. In newly acquired Christian Lynch Dryden found their answer for a capable partner. Lynch has a 1.95 GAA and .942 SV% in his three games–all wins.
Dryden has the SI’s second most potent powerplay at 22.6%. Their penalty kill is 79.3%.
The Ice Dogs average 21.2 penalty minutes per game.
Thunder Bay at Dryden Saturday
Head to head: TBN 0.3.1 DRY 4.0.0
Kam River at Sioux Lookout Saturday
Head to head: KRW 4.2.0 SLB 2.1.3