The SIJHL regular season concluded Saturday night. No PhD’s in mathematics were required to figure out the standings. Points determined the rankings with no tie breakers necessary.
First place Dryden gets a first round bye. Second place Kam River will host seventh place Ironwood. Third place Thunder Bay will have home court advantage over sixth place Fort Frances. Fifth place Red Lake travels to Sioux Lookout, who finished in fourth. All playoff series are best-of-seven.
The league will be releasing a schedule shortly.
Head to Head records:
Kam River, 6-1-0, 42 goals for. Ironwood, 1-6-0, 18 goals for.
Thunder Bay, 5-1-1, 33 goals for. Fort Frances, 1-5-1, 17 goals for.
Sioux Lookout, 5-2-0, 22 goals for. Red Lake, 2-4-1, 17 goals for.
As luck would have it, the final week featured playoff previews of all three quarterfinal series. Kam River and Ironwood split over the weekend. Ditto for Sioux Lookout and Red Lake. Thunder Bay and Fort Frances battled to a 4-4 draw Friday night in Fort Frances.
Dryden rested a slew of veterans in their 7-1 loss to Thunder Bay Saturday. Kam River sat Daxton Lang, Jett Mintenko (86 and 83 points respectively) and number one goaltender Ashton Sadauskas in the final game. Thunder Bay could not afford to rest anyone.
Ironwood pulled out 4-3 win over Kam River to end their regular season on a high note.
Dryden led the league in points with 77, winning percentage, .770, shorthanded goals for, 10, and penalty minutes, 1,067. They scored 224 goals while allowing 136. They enter the playoffs with a 7-2-1 record in their last 10 games. I will profile the Ice Dogs in greater detail when they hit the semi-finals.
Kam River led the league in goals for, 236, and fewest goals against, 118, for a neat 2:1 ratio. They’re 8-2-0 in their last 10.
Daxton Lang led the SIJHL in scoring with 86 points and 35 goals. Jett Mintenko was second with 83 points (30G-53A). Their line-mate Kaden Goodwin was 4th in scoring with 66 points (25-41). Carter Poddubny had 17 goals and 25 assists. Edwin Liang was second among defencemen with 37 points.
Ashton Sadauskas led all netminders with 25 wins. He was tied with Matthew Ofukany of Sioux Lookout with a 2.39 GAA. His .925 SV% was .002 off the pace. He led the league with 2,060 minutes. Sam Keene will be the back-up. Keene was 7-5-0 overall, 7-1-0 with Kam River.
Thunder Bay led in special teams, rising from a middle-of-the-pack power play (20.4% in Week 14) to a 27.5% efficiency rate at season’s end. Their penalty kill was 88.4%.
Tyler Jordan ended the year with 32 goals, one of three players to reach 30. Combined with 34 helpers he hit 66 points, tied with Goodwin of Kam River.
The Stars had five additional players in the top-20. Evan Simeoni led all rookies with 22 goals and 34 assists for 56 points. Tag Bryson had a lone goal but led the league with 55 assists. He was the highest point producer among rearguards. Marcellus Francis had 55 points in 38 games (23 goals). Beau Helmeczi had 50 points and Alex Remenda had 46. Jarred Feist had 23 points in 17 games, and Cohen Tangedal, pointless in his first two games back from a serious injury, had 25 points in 17 games.
Keenan Marks ended with 15-8-3 record with a 2.83 GAA and .924 SV%. Liam Letters is 4-1-1 since joining the team.
Sioux Lookout hit exactly 200 goals in game 50. The reigning champs were plus-67 over the year.
Alex Lucas finished 6th in league scoring with 62 points (26 goals). Jonah Smith had 18 goals and 35 assists for 53 points. Owen Cotter had 44 points. Defenceman Tait Howell, 34, rookie Brodie Wood, 34, Owen Riffel, 33, d-man Kaden Veller, 31, and Sage Roberts, 30 (in 34 games) rounded out the top offensive players.
Matthew Ofukany, 18-6-0/2.39/.917 in 1,478 minutes, and Matthew Spencer-Dahl, 13-8-2/2.78/.917 in 1,469 minutes, were as interchangeable in net, and also very good.
Sioux Lookout had an 18.0% power play, and an 80.0% penalty kill. The Bombers power play was just 13.3% nine weeks ago.
Red Lake battled to overtake Fort Frances for fifth place on the final weekend. They were nine points back seven weeks ago. The Miners are 5-3-2 in their last 10.
Nathan Dann led the team in goals with 29 and points with 50. Quinn Szpak ended the year with 43 points. Defenceman Bryson Carlyle had 34 points. Euan Morrison had 32.
Rookie Koen Webber and Nick Peters tend goal. Webber was the minutes leader with 1,227. He’s 10-8-2 with a 3.52 GAA and .896 SV%. Peters finished with a 5-5-2 record, 3.58 GAA and .885 SV%.
Red Lake had a 19.1% PP and 74.4% PK.
Fort Frances is 2-5-3 in their last 10.
Brady Krentz finished with 50 points with 21 goals. Power play specialist Jack Wood (league-leading 12 PP goals) had 37 points overall. Pierce Gouin, 34, Tie Schumacher, 32, and defenceman Evan Kabel, 32, were the top team scorers.
Gunner Paradis was 10-8-1/3.28/.916 with 1,336 minutes in net. Rookie Nolan Koethler was 7-13-1/3.81/.897 in 1,528 minutes.
The Lakers had a 25.9% PP and 78.0% PK.
Ironwood took a morale-boosting 4-3 home decision against Kam River to finish off the season. They had the fewest penalty minutes in the SIJHL, 599.
Marshall Thomas had 46 points in 46 games with 21 goals. Matteo Salvatore had 33. Rookie Aidan Charron finished with 27 points tied with defenceman and minutes leader Josh Gulden. Collin Baker had 25.
Trent Boryszczuk finished with a 7-14-1/3.98/.917 in 1,281 minutes. Kole Kronstedt was 2-19-2/5.64/.872 in 1,458 minutes.
The Lumberjacks had a power play of 20.2% and a penalty kill of 65.4%.
 | AT THUNDER BAY NORTH STARS |  | ||
| Tyler Jordan's two goals led a group of seven North Stars who tallied two points as the Stars defeated Ironwood 7-3 before 397 fans at the Gardens. The Stars have a two-point lead on Sioux Lookout in the battle for third place. Both teams have two games left. Jarred Feist blasted a shot past Trent Boryszczuk from the high slot after a set up pass from Marcellus Francis to open the scoring for Thunder Bay midway through the first. Marshall Thomas tied up at 18:13 on a rebound for his 19th. Matthew Lysak put the Stars ahead 2-1 with a top shelf wrister. Jordan tucked in his 31st at 2:44 of the second frame. Ironwood scored the next two to knot the score at 3-3. Jack Carruthers scored on a Lumberjack power play at 10:25. Felix St. Onge registered his first goal of the year with a shot from the point. The Stars re-took the lead at 17:51. Beau Helmeczi's backhand feed to Acoyen Fehr netted Fehr his 10th of the year. Thunder Bay tacked on three unanswered goals in the third. Eric Sheriff corralled a puck for eighth, Alex Remenda got his 23rd on the power play, and Jordan got his 32nd--one behind Daxton Lang of Kam River--at 13:57. Boryszczuk batted through ill-health to finish the game. He stopped 47 of 54 shots. Keenan Marks made 32 saves for his 14th win. Fehr and Lysak added assists. Francis, Evan Simeoni, Remenda and top SIJHL assist man Tag Bryson (54 helpers) all had two assists each. Ironwood was 1-2 on the power play while Thunder Bay was 1-3. The Lumberjacks took eight minor penalties to Thunder Bay's two. |
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 | AT RED LAKE MINERS |  | ||
| Dryden is in. The Ice Dogs scored the first three and the last four en route to a 7-2 road win over the Red Lake Miners. The win enabled Dryden to clinch first place and the playoff bye that comes with it. A win for the Miners would have clinched them a fifth place spot. A regulation time loss for Fort Frances in their final game against Thunder Bay will still get the Miners there. Red Lake still has two games left to clinch. Kelby Diehl deflected Carson Devine's one-timer 40 seconds into the game on a Dryden power play as the Ice Dogs jumped out to a 1-0 lead. Evan Mayer's 15th from the high slot doubled the lead. Elias Eisenbarth stuffed in a rebound after a pair of saves by Koen Webber for a 3-0 edge. A Dryden turnover netted Corbyn Demchuk's 6th goal at 8:42. Ryan Heuser jammed in his eighth at 18:33 to narrow the lead to one. Dryden put the game away with four unanswered goals in the second. Eli Antoine scored unassisted, Jordan Wales scored on the power play on a feed from Ryan Oatman, Mayer got his second of the game at 16:49, and Max Roby's 29th with 35 seconds left in the period closed out the scoring. Red Lake's Koen Webber was pulled at 13:33 of the third and was replaced by Ilan Walny to finish off the contest. The third period was scoreless. Kellan Mooney made 20 save to collect his 20th win, while Webber saved 35 of 42. Walny was 4-4 in the saves department. Three fights punctuated the action. Red Lake took 23 of the 40 penalty minutes doled out. Dryden was 2-3 on power play, killing off Red Lake's lone chance. Five Ice Dogs had two points each, led by Mayer's two goals. Roby and Wales had assists and Devine and Oatman had two helpers each. |
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| AT FORT FRANCES LAKERS |  | ||
| Liam Letters made 35 saves for Thunder Bay, Gunner Paradis had 30, as the North Stars and Lakers battled to a 4-4 draw before 397 fans at Ice For Kids Arena. The tie tied the Lakers with Red Lake for fifth place. Thunder Bay is a point ahead of Sioux Lookout in the fight for third spot. Fort Frances skated out to an early 2-0 lead. Gunnar Simon's snipe high glove side, his sixth goal of the year, came at 1:35 of the first. Two minutes later Tie Schumacher's 14th on a breakaway had the locals up by two. Chance Loke cut the lead to one when his wrister got through Paradis at 9:41 on a Thunder Bay power play. The teams exchanged second period strikes. Jack Wood skated end-to-end after a Thunder Bay turnover to score his 16th unassisted at 11:16 for a two-goal Fort Frances lead. Evan Simeoni got one under Paradis' pad at 16:41 on a Stars' power play to cut the lead to one. Thunder Bay tied it, and went ahead 4-3, only to see Fort Frances knot the score at 4-4 in the third. Jamieson Franz' seventh knotted the score at 9:22 with a top shelf point shot. Jarred Feist's 13th at 14:03 on a one-timer put the Stars ahead. Carter Deschamps tied the game at 4-4 with four minutes left. His low shot eluded Letters for his 15th. The teams battled through seven minutes of scoreless penalty-free overtime. Thunder Bay held a 4-3 shot advantage. Thunder Bay went 3-5 on the power play while killing off all five Laker opportunities. The Stars took 42 of 54 penalty minutes, incurring a pair of 10-minute misconducts along the way. The Lakers closed out their regular season while the Stars travelled home to play the Ice Dogs Saturday. |
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 | AT IRONWOOD LUMBERJACKS | | ||
| Kam River's top line of Daxton Lang, Jett Mintenko and Kaden Goodwin struck for 12 combined points, Amar Powar added a pair, and Ashton Sadauskas recorded win number 25 as the Walleye defeated the Lumberjacks 9-4 before 325 fans in Ironwood. The Lumberjacks hung in, down by two 50 minutes into regulation time, until Kam River poured in the last three to nail it down. The Walleye outshot the hosts 39-27. Kole Kronstedt saw his record drop to 2-19-2. Caleb Labelle's third and Mintenko's 30th staked the Walleye to a 2-0 lead. Aidan Charron's 14th, unassisted at 10:48, tightened the score to 2-1. Amar Power restored the two-goal Walleye lead with his 11th on a solo effort. Jack Carruthers replied for Ironwood at 14:27 of the first to shave the lead to one. Kam River scored three of the four second period goals to bump the lead to 6-3. Goodwin, Powar, and Lang on the power play, scored for Kam River with Chase Krtanjek notching his 8th for Ironwood. Jack Croghan scored midway through the third to make it 6-4. Edwin Liang's shorthanded unassisted goal, his fifth, Sam Sargent's 12th and Lang's 35th rounded out the scoring. Kam River was 1-2 on the power play while shutting down four Ironwood chances. Lang had two goals and two assists. Goodwin and Mintenko had one goals and three assists each, and Powar got his two markers. Timothy Hanulik had two helpers for Ironwood. |
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| Trent Boryszczuk made 48 saves and Jack Carruthers scored the game winner at 11:47 of the third period as Ironwood defeated Kam River 4-3 before 325 fans at the Pat O'Donnell Civic Center. These two teams will square off in the quarterfinals. Former Lumberjack Sam Keene suffered his first loss as a Walleye, shunting aside 22 of 26 against his former team. Sam Sargent scored for Kam River 14 seconds into the game, tucking a wrist shot inside the far post for his thirteenth of the year. Undaunted, Lumberjacks' forward Nicholas Kim used his considerable speed to gain a stride, cut in front of Keene and bury his first of the year at 16:33 to tie it. Ironwood took a 3-1 lead with two second period goals. Marshall Thomas, the game's only two-point man, scored his 20th on breakaway backhander at 4:11. Thomas notched his second of the game on another breakaway at 12:01, unassisted this time. Kam River fired 21 shots in the third and had the game tied before the five minute mark. Zach Baumann got his 8th, capitalizing on a Carter Poddubny rebound at 1:05. Amar Powar roofed his 13th of the year at 4:22, scoring shorthanded and unassisted. Buoyed by Boryszczuk's goaltending the Lumberjacks retook the lead at 11:47. Carruthers got his seventh from close range. Former Walleye Matteo Salvatore collected his 22nd assist, and Chase Krtanjek collected his 15th on the power play marker. Keene was pulled with 2:06 left. Kam River pelted the Ironwood cage but could not tie it up. Kam River was 0-1 on the power play while Ironwood was 1-8. The Walleye took 10 of 13 minor penalties. |
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 | AT RED LAKE MINERS | | ||
| The Bombers scored three power play goals and added a shorty for good measure to defeat Red Lake 4-1. Matthew Ofukany stopped 28-29 to raise his record to 18-6-0. The Bombers led 1-0 through 20 minutes. Owen Riffel ripped a shot over Nick Peters on the power play at 15:55, his 17th of the campaign. Sioux Lookout sandwiched a shorthanded goal between two power play goals to open up a 4-0 lead through two periods. Jonah Smith redirected Alex Lucas' shot for his 18th. Owen Cotter picked up a loose puck at the his own blue line and skated the length of the ice on a breakaway to score his 15th. Sean Casey's seventh of the year, a one-timer from the point at 15:00, upped the lead to 4-0. Ryan Heuser scored from in close at 15:36 of the third on a 4-on-4 to spoil Ofukany's shutout bid. Peters stopped 23 of 27 in the Red Lake cage. The Bombers power play was 3-8, while shutting down two Red Lake power plays. The Miners took 26 of 36 penalty minutes. Sioux Lookout gained a point in their pursuit of Thunder Bay for third place. Red Lake remained tied with Fort Frances with 49 points in their battle with the Lakers for fifth. The Miners have more wins, the first tie breaker. |
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| Quinn Szpak scored two goals and assisted on another, and Nick Peters made 31 saves, as the Red Lake secured fifth place with a 4-2 win over Sioux Lookout. Peters evened his record to 5-5-2 while Matthew Spencer-Dahl made 22 saves and saw his season log fall to 13-8-2. The game served as playoff preview as fourth place Sioux Lookout will square off against the fifth place Miners in the quarterfinals. The Miners opened up a 2-0 lead in the first and tacked on the first goal of the second for a 3-0 edge. Euan Morrison scored unassisted at 5:39 of the first after Bombers starter Matthew Spencer-Dahl made a couple of saves. Morrison's goal was his ninth. Szpak got his first goal at 11:28 from the slot for number 11 on the year. Szpak tallied his second at 3:23 of the middle stanza on a Red Lake power play. Brodie Wood got his 13th from the slot at 12:07 to make it 3-1. Owen Cotter scored at 50 seconds of the third from 10 feet out to narrow the Red Lake lead to 3-2. Bradyn Rowsell's fifth of the year at 10:50 restored the two-goal Red Lake. Szpak garnered his 31st assist on the play. Spencer-Dahl left the Bomber cage with 2:22 left but the Bombers couldn't muster the comeback. Foxx McColl had two assists for Red Lake. Cotter had one assist in addition to his goal. A pair of fights inflated the penalty minute totals. Red Lake was tagged with 22 minutes in the bin while the Bombers took 20. Red Lake was 2-3 with the man advantage. The Bombers were 1-5. |
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| AT THUNDER BAY NORTH STARS | | ||
| Keenan Marks made 42 saves, several of them on breakaways, to backstop Thunder Bay to a 7-1 win over Dryden. Marks raised his record to 15-8-3. The Stars captured third place outright before 673 fans at the Gardens. The Ice Dogs rested many of their key players with first place in the bag but still outshot the Stars 43-41. Matthew Lysak had a pair of goals and an assist to power the attack, garnering first star status in the process. Beau Helmeczi had one goal and two helpers and Peter Forester assisted on three goals. Carter Anton, Evan Simeoni and Chance Loke had a goal and assist each. The Stars skated out to a quick 3-0 lead by 5:47 of the first. Helmeczi notched his 19th, Anton got his third, and Lysak sniped his 12th from a tough angle on a rebound. Payton Hu went five-hole at 10:11 to narrow the lead to 3-1, but Loke's fourth of the year on a North Star power play restored the three-goal lead by the end of the frame. Lysak slapped the puck into the top corner on Dryden starter Noah Davis for the lone second period marker. Marcellus Francis went low stick side on Davis moments after Marks stymied Brodie Scopick's breakaway effort at 4:27 of the third. Simeoni closed out the scoring with a power play strike, his 22nd goal of the season, at 8:29. Thunder Bay went 2-5 on the power play while killing off three penalties. Notably, Thunder Bay ended the season with the top power play and the top penalty kill in the league. |
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