By Gary Moskalyk
A nine-game week pushes the SIJHL regular season past the 50% completion plateau. Kam River continues to roll, Sioux Lookout has an eight-game winning streak, Dryden hangs in in third, Thunder Bay is .500 in their last 10, and Aiden Corbett and his Red Lake Miners are unbeaten in regulation in their last seven.
Wisconsin’s two wins over Kenora gives them a six-point cushion over the Lakers, who lost a pair to Red Lake. The Islanders battle for a period or two but are still looking for their second win.
Red Lake 15-7-2 32 pts .667 5th GF 115 GA 67 +48 PIMs 442 PP% 20.0 PK% 86.3 at Dryden 17-10-1 35 pts .625 3rd GF 110 GA 92 +18 PIMs 587 PP% 23.8 PK% 78.0 Tuesday
Head to head: Red Lake 2-1-0, Dryden 1-2-0.
Aiden Corbett is third in league scoring with 37 points with 17 goals. The Winnipeg, MB native has 11 goals and 11 assists in his last six games, helping the Miners climb the standings board.
Red Lake is a point behind Thunder Bay with two games in hand and are three behind Dryden with four games in hand on the Ice Dogs.
Luke DeCorby has 23 points in 23 games and Nathan Dann has 15 goals in his 16 games this year, with six assists. Noah Tenney, 20, defenceman Blake Hiltermann, 18, Carter Deschamps, 17 and Gabe Tanton, 16, populate the 21-40 slots in SIJHL scoring. Brody Lindal has 13 points.
In net, Ethan Nietsch’s 2.25 GAA places him third in goals against, and his .935 save percentage is second in the league. Noah Davis has five wins and one loss in net.
Red Lake’s powerplay is 20.0 per cent and their penalty kill is 86.3%. The Miners draw 18.4 penalty minutes per game.
Dryden dropped two on the road against Kam River, no doubt missing forward Bryce Benfield and tough defenceman Geoff Bjarnason. The team will reload at home this weekend against a Miners team on the rise.
Max Roby has 18 goals and 15 helpers to lead the team in scoring. McLaren Paulsen also has 18 goals. Eli Antoine is a point behind Paulsen with 28 points and 12 goals. Sean Smith has 21 points with eight goals and 13 assists. The injured Benfield has 20 points in his 14 games. Carson Devine has played all 28 games and has 19 points to show for it.
Defenceman Sebastiano Biagi continues on with 17 points in 20 contests. Tag Bryson has one goal but 14 assists, Ryland Maier has 14 points and Bjarnason has 13 points in his 17 games.
Ewan Soutar has been exceptional in net, with an 8-3-0 record, 2.17 GAA and .932 SV%. He was out for essentially a month battling an injury. Liam Vanderkooi is 2-2-0 in his five starts, with a 6.25 GAA.
Dryden will be the first team to hit 30 games this year, leaving 19 games left in their 2023-24 regular season.
The Ice Dogs are potent on the powerplay with a 23.8% rate. On the penalty kill they’re at 78.0%. Dryden is averaging 21.0 penalty minutes per game.
Thunder Bay 15-8-3 33 pts .635 4th GF 101 GA 83 +18 PIMs 431 PP% 16.0 PK% 84.2 at Kam River 19-4-0 38 pts .826 tied 1st GF 119 GA 61 +58 PIMs 466 PP% 30.6 PK% 82.4 Friday. Kam River at Thunder Bay Saturday
KRW 2-1-0, TBN 1-2-0.
Thunder Bay’s 15-game points streak was an exceptional stretch to be sure, but they’re 4-4-2 in their last 10.
EJ Paddington is the SIJHL’s lone 40-point man. He has a 17G/24A split for 41 points. Edison Weeks 12 goals and league-leading 26 assists gives him 38 points, good for second in league production. Easton Mikus is tied with the blazing Aiden Corbett with 37 points. Both players have 17 goals and 20 assists.
Tyler Jordan has 13 goals and eight assists for 21 points in 21 games. Dimitri Trahiotis has 19 points, Cohen Tangedahl, 15, and defencemen Connor O’Brien and Drew Caddo also have 15 points to round out the North Stars players north of 13 points.
Keenan Marks is two periods away from 1,000 net minutes. His 960 leads the league. He’s 11-5-1 with a 2.94 GAA and .916 SV%. Ethan Barron is 4-3-2, 3.08/.898 in 603 minutes.
The Stars have a 16.0% powerplay and 84.2% penalty kill. The Stars average 16.6 minutes in the penalty box, the least in the league. Notably, Saturday’s game against Sioux Lookout, the SI’s second least penalized team, drew three minor penalties all game long.
Kam River and Thunder Bay split in their last meeting. This home and home series will be well attended.
Just when you thought the Walleye couldn’t possibly maintain a 2:1 goals for to goals against ratio they’re at it again, 119 GF to 61 GA , just three goals for off the pace.
Jeremy Dunmore is 9th in league scoring with 16 goals and 13 assists for 29 points. Five Walleye players are 12-16th in the scoring race. Ryan Doucette, 26, Jett Mintenko and Carter Poddubny, 25, Riley Borody, 24, and Nickolas Fagnilli, 23 are the five. Poddubny leads all SIJHL snipers with 11 powerplay tallies.
Defenceman Brydon Bell has 21 points in 22 games, good for second place in defenceman points. Liam Bell has 18 points in 19 games from the blue-line.
Kaden Goodwin and Edwin Liang, 14 points, and Matteo Salvatore, 13, round out the Walleye players in the top-60.
Ashton Sadauskas’ 14 wins leads the SI by three. His GAA is 2.32 and SV% is .907 in 905 minutes. Rookie Travis VanderZwaag is 5-3-0 with 2.75/.900 numbers in 480 minutes.
The Walleye powerplay is clicking along at 30.6%, and their penalty kill is 82.4%.
Kam River averages 20.3 penalty minutes per game.
Red Lake at Kenora 1-20-1 3 pts .068 8th GF 43 GA 155 -112 PIMs 612 PP% 8.0 PK% 66.4 Fri/Sat
Head-to-head: RLM 3-0-0, KEN 0-3-0.
Kenora continues to look for win number two. They lost a 5-3 game to Wisconsin, a game they led in for nearly two full periods.
Aaron Bertschinger continues to lead the teams in goals with 10, and points, 16. Brayden Mackay has 13 points with six goals. John Paul Scaringi has 13 points in 21 games.
Scaringi, an ’03 forward from Woodbridge, ON (Toronto, according to the team website) spent two years with the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners of the NOJHL. In two 41-game seasons he had 15 total goals and 30 assists for 45 points, with 59 penalty minutes. The 20-year-old is 5’11”, 174-lb with a right-handed shot.
Jeremiah Jacques has 12 points, and newly acquired Grayson Chell struck for two goals in Saturday’s game against the Lumberjacks.
Matthew Stephens has logged 647 minutes with an .896 SV% in net. Kaden King and Connor Dunham-Fox share in the goaltending duties.
The Islanders powerplay stands at 8.0% and the penalty kill is 66.4%. Kenora is the first SIJHL team to crest 600 penalty minutes with 612 in 22 games for an average of 27.8 minutes per game.
Wisconsin 7-12-4 18 pts .391 6th GF 77 GA 107 -30 PIMs 447 PP% 13.6 PK% 78.0 at Fort Frances 5-16-2 12 pts .261 7th GF 59 GA 103 -44 PIMs 540 PP% 13.4 PK% 84.4 Friday. FFL at WIS in Rice Lake, WI Saturday
Head-to-head: This is their first meeting of the year.
Wisconsin created a six-point gap themselves and Fort Frances with their wins against the Islanders. A 15-goal weekend, led by Nolan Fowler’s six, catapulted a number of players in the scoring ranks, notably Fowler, who went from five goals in 14 games to 11 in 16 games. Fowler was out for most of the month of November.
Zach Johnson leads the team in goals with 12, and points with 21. Fowler has seven assists for 18 points. Ryan Kayser also has 18 points. Johnson picked up three goals and three assists and Phillips had two goals and six assists against the Islanders.
Kaden Postal has eight goals and 14 points. Connor Corcoran has 12 points.
Rylan Freshwater brings a .500 record to the cage with 4-4-0 record in 539 minutes. William Forrester has a 3-6-1 record with a 4.19 GAA and .894 save percentage in 573 minutes. Jakob Barcelona is 0-2-3 with a 4.72 GAA and .897 SV% in 283 minutes.
Wisconsin’s powerplay is at 13.6% and the penalty kill is 78.0%. The Lumberjacks average 19.4 penalty minutes per game.
Fort Frances dropped a pair to streaking Red Lake last weekend. They enter the weekend home-and-home with their closest competitor six point off the pace, and winless in their last five.
Jack Wood leads the Lakers in points with 15. Brady Krentz, Ryker Watt and Clark Scaddan all have 14 points with eight, seven and seven goals respectively. Rookies Pierce Gouin and Evan Kabel have 11 and 10 points.
Jack Orchard has a 3-9-1 log with a GAA of 3.90 and SV% of .908. Lukas Toth is 1-4-1 and Gunner Paradis has a win in three starts.
The Lakers powerplay stands at 13.4% and the penalty kill is 84.4%–one of the strengths on the club.
Fort has 540 penalty minutes in 23 games for an average of 23.5 minutes per game.
Sioux Lookout 18-5-2 38 pts .760 tied 1st GF 104 GA 60 +44 PIMs 418 PP% 25.9 PK% 87.1 at Dryden Friday. DRY at SLB Saturday
Head-to-head: SLB 2-1-0, DRY 1-2-0.
Sioux Lookout enters 2023’s final weekend of play tied with Kam River for first place. The Bombers are on an eight-game winning streak. Dryden is just three points back. Yet another statement series in a season that will be filled with them.
Owen Riffel leads the SIJHL in goals with 20 in 22 games. Combined with his 16 assists his 36 points places him 5th in league scoring. Blake Burke is one of seven players to hit 30 points with an 11G/19A split. His brother, Connor Burke has 14 goals and 27 points to form the top Bomber line.
Dayvan Bull is the only rearguard to average over a point a game with 22 points in 20 games. He leads all defencemen in goals with eight. Jonah Smith, 19, defenceman Nolan Palmer, 19 and Cobe Delaney, 15, round out the list of Bombers in the SIJHL 21-40 range. Cedrik Robidoux also has 15 points; Tait Howell has 14 and Owen Cotter has 13.
Matthew Spencer-Dahl is 6-1-1 in 493 minutes with a 1.70 GAA and .952 SV%. He leads the league in goals against average and save percentage. Jack Osmond is 9-4-1 with a 2.58 GAA and .932 SV% in 837 minutes. Tisdale, SK native Matthew Ofukany, who hasn’t played for a nearly a month, has three wins in his only three starts. The pads are stacked in net for the Bombers.
Sioux Lookout has a 25.9% success rate on the powerplay and lead the league in penalty kill percentage with an 87.1% rating.
The Bombers average 16.7 penalty minutes per game.