THUNDER BAY – Sometimes all you need is one – especially when you’re up against a hot goaltender.
For the better part of two periods on Wednesday night, the Thunder Bay North Stars couldn’t seem to solve Fort Frances goaltender Ryan Tanner, who came into the Superior International Junior Hockey League contest with a 1-10-0 record, a 5.99 goals against average and having given up 27 goals in his past four appearances.
He looked like the second coming of Carter Hutton for most of his latest contest.
Tanner stopped 41 of 42 shots fired his way through 40 minutes, keeping the five-win Lakers in tough with a North Stars team raring to make up ground in the standings as they burned games in hand with a pair of mid-week home-ice games against their cellar-dwelling foe.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, Tanner couldn’t hold off the North Stars in the third.
Dylan Winsor potted the game-winner 5:51 into the final frame, tipping home a Matthew Halushak shot from just inside the blue-line, and Thunder Bay went on to claim a 61-shot, 4-1 victory over a struggling Lakers team, losers of 14 in a row.
“It was a good team win,” said Winsor, the goal his ninth of the season.
“We just had to play the game the right way, get pucks to the net. When we start driving the net and playing with a good team effort, it doesn’t matter what goalie is there, we’re going to score on him eventually.”
Still, it was a sense of relief that cascaded over the North Stars bench when Campbell finally beat Tanner, punching the puck past the Fort Frances netminder for his third in five games since joining the team after the Christmas break.
“It was kind of a weight off our shoulders,” Winsor said. “We needed on big there. We really needed one.”
The North Stars, who controlled the play most of the night, but didn’t always look their sharpest, making an extra pass instead of shooting and failing to go tape-to-tape when they did dish the puck off, took the lead for good early in the third.
“I was just down low, working hard with the puck. One of my linemates got the puck to the point and it was just a nice shot from our defenceman and I ended up getting a stick on it and it went in,” Winsor said.
Magnus Pearson and Edison Weeks, with his 17th of the campaign, put things away with goals less than three minutes apart, the latter coming on the power play and earning Thunder Bay goaltender his first assist. Lemiuex made 30 stops to pick up the win, his ninth.
Connor O’Brien had the lone goal of the night for the Lakers, the puck trickling past Lemieux seven minutes into the game.
The North Stars (16-11-4) will face a tougher test on Friday night, when they head to the Norwest Arena to take on the first-place Kam River Fighting Walleye (24-7-1). Fort Frances (5-28-0) will host Wisconsin (11-18-5) on Friday night.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Fort Frances, O’Brien 2 (Watt, Krentz) 6:59. Penalties: Skillestad TB (hooking) 5:44, Wicklund FF (cross checking) 19:05.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring. 2. Thunder Bay, Campbell 3 (Feist, Fuchs) 17:54. Penalties: Watt FF (tripping) 19:41.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 3. Thunder Bay, Winsor 9 (Halushak, Wesley) 5:51. 4. Thunder Bay, Pearson 6 (Fuchs) 12:38. 5. Thunder Bay, Weeks 17 (Skillestad, Lemieux) 15:14 pp. Penalties: Snooks FF (high sticking) 14:12, Krentz FF, Glousher TB (roughing) 18:29.
GAME DATA – SOG – Fort Frances 12-9-9-30, Thunder Bay 15-27-19-61; Power plays (goals-chances) – Fort Frances (0-1), Thunder Bay (1-3); Goaltenders – Fort Frances: Ryan Tanner, Thunder Bay: Conner Lemieiux; A: 210.
