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%.
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AT RED LAKE MINERS |
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| 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 |
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AT THUNDER BAY NORTH STARS |
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| 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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