Dryden’s lead atop the standings shrank to two points in week 14. They have a game in hand on second place Kam River.
McLaren Paulsen is third in league scoring with 49 points. Carson Devine, 41, Max Roby, 39 and Payton Hu, 38, reside in the top-10. Eli Antoine and Emmanuel Nkombou are in the top-20.
Dryden has the league’s best power play, 30.9%, and their 83.6% penalty kill trails only Thunder Bay. Kellan Mooney, 12-2-0, leads the league in goals against average at 2.25. Braxton Castagno, 8-3-1, provides competent back-up.
Kam River is on a six-game winning streak, buoyed by a weekend sweep over Sioux Lookout. There’ll be some heavy lifting in week 15. They play road games against the Ice Dogs and Bombers on Friday and Saturday.
Daxton Lang and Jett Mintenko both have 53 points to lead the SIJHL scoring parade. Kaden Goodwin’s recent hat trick has him in 10th place (38 pts).
Ashton Sadauskas leads the league in goaltending wins with 14, and in minutes, 1,128. Sam Keene is 4-0-0 with the Walleye in his four starts.
Sioux Lookout is 4-5-1 in their last 10, and on a three-game slide. Alex Lucas paces the attack with 39 points. Team captain Jonah Smith has 32 points. Owen Cotter, Tait Howell, Kaden Veller are all knocking on the 20-point door.
The Bombers 14.0% power play is a bit of a concern, although their 82.2% penalty kill is doing just fine.
Matthew Spencer-Dahl, 8-6-1, and Matthew Ofukany, 10-3-0, form a formidable goaltending duo.
Thunder Bay is 5-4-1 in the last 10. The Stars are averaging exactly five goals a game. They’re one point back of Sioux Lookout with two games in hand.
Tyler Jordan has 38 points to sit ninth in league production. Beau Helmeczi, 33, Evan Simeoni, 31, Alex Remenda, 29, Tag Bryson, 29, and Marcellus Francis are in the top 20. Cohen Tangedal, 25 points in 18 games, will miss most of the regular season with a foot injury.
Ben Laurette is no longer with the club. He’s resurfaced as a member of the Melville Millionaires of the SJHL, posting a shutout in his first start there. Veteran netminder Keenan Marks, 6-5-2, is joined by newcomer Rylan Benner, who was 4-2-1 with Winkler in the MJHL.
The Stars power play is at 19.4%, but the penalty kill stands at 90.9%. Thunder Bay has allowed eight goals in 88 chances with three shorties.
Fort Frances is 6-3-1 in their last 10 games. Brady Krentz leads the team in production with 40 points, one of five SIJHL players to have hit that level. Jack Wood, 26, Evan Kabel, 23, and Pierce Gouin, 20 are next in line.
Gunner Paradis is 6-3-0 with a 2.42 GAA and .935 SV%. Rookie Nolan Koethler is 7-6-1 in 1,039 minutes.
The Laker power play is 30.6%, just a notch below Dryden’s 30.9%. The PK is 80.9%.
Red Lake lost two home games over the weekend, but are still 5-3-2 in their last 10.
Nathan Dann’s 31 points is number one on the squad. Rookie Quinn Szpak, 27, Bryson Carlyle, 20, and Gabe Tanton , 20, are next.
Koen Webber is 8-4-1 and Ethan Rau is 2-2-1 between the pipes. The Miners PP is 16.3% and the PK is 77.4%.
Ironwood is trending in the right direction, 3-6-1 in their last 10. Trent Boryszczuk’s recent 52-save-one-goal-allowed masterpiece leads a string of exceptional netminding over the last half dozen games. Kole Kronstedt’s 1,056 net minutes places him second in playing time.
Marshall Thomas is 11th in points with 36. The Lumberjacks offence counts 82 goals in 28 games. Ironwood has the fewest penalty minutes in the league–364. The ‘Jacks 23.0% PP is fourth in the league.
Kenora postponed two games in week 14. They have a doubleheader in Thunder Bay in week 15.
 | AT KAM RIVER FIGHTING WALLEYE |  | ||
| Daxton Lang figured in all of the Kan River's seven goals, Jett Mintenko had six points and Kaden Goodwin had a hat trick and two helpers as the Fighting Walleye defeated visiting Sioux Lookout 7-2. Winning goaltender Ashton Sadauskas saved his best work until the middle of the second period. Up 2-1, the Walleye took three successive minor penalties, killing off an extended 5-on-3 with their top penalty killer steadying the ship between the pipes. Goodwin added a power play marker and Lang backhanded one on a partial breakaway at 18:57 of the second period for a 4-1 lead. The Walleye outscored Sioux Lookout 3-1 in the final frame. Goodwin accepted a pass from Mintenko for his second goal at 8:46. Brodie Wood squeaked one through Sadauskas at 11:03 to shave the lead to 5-2. Goodwin's hat trick marker cinched the win just 30 seconds later, and Lang's one-timer at 16:37 past Matthew Ofukany on a Walleye power play was the final nail. Sadauskas won his 14th game of the year, stopping 32 of 34. Ofukany saved 24 of 31. Lang's seven points gives him 52, tied with Mintenko for the league lead. Sage Roberts was the other Bomber scorer. |
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| Sam Keene made 14 saves to backstop the Fighting Walleye to a 3-2 victory and their sixth consecutive win. Kam River pulled to within two points of idle Dryden for first place. Third place Sioux Lookout fell five points back of Kam River. Carter Poddubny struck at 18:14 of the first, connecting on a rebound off Zach Baumann's original shot. Adam Kukko deflected Evan Lachimea's shot to double the lead at 3:14 of the second. Kaden Veller responded for Sioux Lookout with a power play strike at 18:56--a wrist shot, blocker side from the slot--for his eighth. Kam River applied good pressure in the third period. Matthew Spencer-Dahl stymied Sam Sargent's shorthanded breakaway chance mid-period. Carter Nailen dinged the cross bar at 11:30 and Daxton Lang was denied on a good chance. Kam River's Max Wright added an insurance goal at 15:11, cutting across the ice to gain a better angle, sniping in his seventh for a 3-1 Walleye lead. The Bombers killed off a penalty with four minutes left. Spencer-Dahl was pulled with 1:23 to go. Sage Roberts beat Keene with seven seconds left to end the scoring. Sioux Lookout was 1-6 on the power play while Kam River was 0-5. Sioux Lookout had 10 minor penalties. Kam River had 11. Attendance at Norwest Arena was 450. |
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 | AT RED LAKE MINERS |  | ||
| Marcellus Francis scored two goals and Keenan Marks made 31 saves as the North Stars moved to within a point of third place Sioux Lookout and stayed two points ahead of Fort Frances. Francis beat Red Lake's Koen Webber with Thunder Bay's first shot of the night at 3:09 of the initial frame, on assists from Tyler Jordan and Tag Bryson. Jager Marshall's backhander got through Marks at 7:30, with Landon van Engelen and Bryson Carlyle assisting, to tie it. Francis scored the lone goal of the middle stanza. Jordan and Evan Simeoni assisted on that effort. Beau Helmeczi added an insurance goal--his 11th--midway through the third, cashing in Acoyen Fehr's rebound. The Miners pulled Webber with 1:46 left but were unable to tie it up. Webber made 29 stops. Thunder Bay garnered 27 of the 37 penalty minutes handed out by referees Aleksi Kauranen and Scott McKean. The Stars were 0-1 on the power play, killing off four Miners' opportunities. |
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 | AT FORT FRANCES LAKERS |  | ||
| Ironwood scored the first two but Brady Krentz, Ian Ness and Co. pumped in the last six as Fort Frances defeated the Lumberjacks 6-2 before 297 fans at Ice For Kids Arena. Marshall Thomas' power play wrister beat Gunner Paradis at 5:04 of the first. Timothy Hanulik, wide open in the slot, doubled the Ironwood lead 48 seconds later for his first SIJHL goal. Jack Wood and Pierce Gouin scored Fort Frances power play goals to tie the game before the end of the first. Wood ripped a one-timer past Kole Kronstedt at 11:38, and Gouin re-directed Evan Kabel's point shot at 18:29. The Lakers fired in three unanswered second period goals to take a commanding 5-2 lead. Ness got his first of two at 4:09. Emerson Evans' wrap around made it 4-2. Ness' second, his eighth of the year, was on a Brady Krentz rebound at 13:14. The Lumberjacks swapped out Kronstedt for Trent Boryszczuk at that juncture. Kronstedt ultimately took the loss, stopping 18 of 23. Krentz' top shelf one-timer at 8:06 of the third closed out the scoring. Paradis stopped 30 of 32 for his sixth win against three losses. He upped his league-leading goals against average to .935. Boryszczuk, second in the SI in SV% at .931, made 20 saves in 21 shots in relief of Kronstedt. The Lakers were 2-5 with the man advantage while Ironwood was 1-4. The Lumberjacks took 14 of 26 penalty minutes. |
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| AT RED LAKE MINERS | | ||
| Trent Boryszczuk stopped 52 of 53 shots and Jake Scott scored his first two SIJHL goals as Ironwood defeated Red Lake 3-1. Boryszczuk has stopped 209 of 217 shots for a .963 save percentage in his last five games. The former Miner leads the league with a .937 save percentage overall. Krtanjek got the Lumberjacks on the board at 6:07 of the first. His wrister fooled Koen Webber, whose cross-handed attempt to glove the puck went awry. Bryson Carlyle's tied the game at 12:03 of the first. His point shot got past a screened Boryszczuk for his sixth of the year. Ironwood took a 2-1 lead in the second. Aidan Charron went five-hole on Webber for his ninth of the campaign. The Miners fired 22 shots at Boryszczuk in the third to no avail. Red Lake pulled Webber for an extra attacker with 52 seconds left. Scott took aim from his own zone and deposited a 160-footer into the vacated net at 19:22 to secure the 'Jacks win. Matteo Salvatore and Timothy Hanulik had two assists each for Ironwood. For Hanulik, it was his first two points as a Lumberjack. Red Lake outshot the visiting Lumberjacks 53-25. Only five minor penalties were called. Red Lake had two of them. Neither team scored on the power play. |
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