By Gary Moskalyk
Just three games populate week 20 with five teams jostling for the top five positions. Three games were lost last week due to poor road conditions. Make up games have not been scheduled as of this writing. Week 21 will feature 12 games.
Wisconsin 12-18-5 29 pts .414 6th GF 125 GA 165 -40 PIMs 676 PP% 17.3 PK% 78.4 at Thunder Bay 25-10-4 54 pts .692 3rd GF 167 GA 121 +46 PIMs 619 PP% 18.9 PK% 83.4 Tuesday
Head to head: WIS 1-4-0, TBN 4-1-0
Wisconsin is tied with Kenora for the fewest games played, 35.
Dillon Phillips continues his meteoric rise up the scoring charts. The 5-11, 150-lb forward from Raleigh, NC has multi-point games in four of his last five games. Phillips is 6th in league scoring with 19 goals and 26 assists for 45 points. He’s played in every game.
Nolan Fowler has 17 goals and 11 assists for 28 points. Defenceman Ryan Kayser has 27 points–fifth in d-man scoring. Rookie Collin Baker has 20 points, and three Lumberjacks, Simon Davidson and rookies Koen Burkholder and Connor Corcoran, have 17 points each.
William Forrester is 3-8-1, with 4.85 goals against and .882 save percentage. Riley Burnett dropped his GAA to 3.62 and upped his SV% .904 in his 6-2 win over Fort Frances on Feb. 10th.
The Lumberjacks powerplay checks in 17.3% and the penalty kill is 78.4%.
Wisconsin averages 19.3 penalty minutes per game, about half a minute below the league average of 19.9.
Thunder Bay has 39 games played, 10 to go. They’re four points out of first, three back of second and two ahead of 4th place Dryden.
Four North Stars have 20+ goals, led by rookie Easton Mikus’ 25. Combined with 24 helpers, Mikus is 4th in point production with 49. Edison Weeks leads the league with 58 points, and assists with 36. EJ Paddington has 21 goals, 31 assists and 52 points. Tyler Jordan has 23 goals and 17 assists and 40 points, one of 12 players with 40 on the year. Dimitri Trahiotis is next in line with 27 points.
Rookie Cohen Tangedal has 22 points, defenceman Cameron Dial has 21, d-man Drew Caddo has 20 and Beau Helmeczi has 11 goals and eight helpers.
Keenan Marks and his unique style is second in the league with net minutes with 1,490 and sports a 17-7-2 record with a 2.94 GAA and .912 SV%. Ben Laurette is 3-0-0 with a 2.33 GAA and .916 SV%.
Thunder Bay has an 18.9% success rate on the powerplay and an 83.4% efficient penalty kill. The Stars average 15.9 minutes per game in the bin.
Sioux Lookout 27-7-4 58 pts .763 1st GF 151 GA 87 +64 PIMs 595 PP% 22.0 PK% 87.3 at Red Lake 24-12-2 50 pts .658 5th GF 173 GA 101 +72 PIMs 687 PP% 22.5 PK% 88.2 Tuesday
Head to head: SLB 3-0-0, RLM 0-2-1
Sioux Lookout is a point ahead of Kam River in the race for first place with 11 games to go. Kam River pulled out a 3-2 win last Saturday in Sioux Lookout to tighten the race.
Owen Riffel leads the SI in goals with 28 and is third in points with 50. Connor Burke has 22 goals and 21 assists and Blake Burke has 16 goals and 26 assists. Defenceman Dayvan Bull leads all defenceman in points with 34 in 33 games–the only rearguard above a point a game (1.03). Defenceman Nolan Palmer has 25 points, Cobe Delaney clocks in at 24, Jordan Smith and Owen Cotter have 23 each. Tait Howell has 17.
The Bombers have allowed 87 goals, the only team in the league south of 100. Jack Osmond has carried the torch in net, posting 1,318 minutes, a goals against average of 2.41, a save percentage of .935 and a 14-5-2 record. Rookie Matthew Spencer-Dahl is 9-1-0 with 1.63/.954 split in 738 minutes. Matthew Ofukany has four wins in his four starts.
The Bombers are fourth in powerplay proficiency with a 22.0% rating, and have an 87.3% penalty kill.
Sioux Lookout averages 15.7 minutes per game in the penalty box–lowest in the league.
Red Lake leads the SIJHL is goal differential with a +72.
Aiden Corbett leads the team offensively with 24 goals and 23 assists in 38 games. Luke DeCorby has 15 goals and 22 helpers for 37 points. Noah Tenney has 31 points as does defenceman Blake Hiltermann. Hiltermann’s 10 goals leads all d-men.
Gabe Tanton has 29 points in 31 games, and sniper Nathan Dann, who hasn’t played since January 12th, has 18 goals and 10 assists, in just 22 games.
Ryker Watt has 21 combined points. Rookie Carter Deschamps also has 21. Matthew MacPherson and Landon van Engelen have 19 each and rookie Ethan Cerone has 18.
Ethan Nietsch is 9-7-2 in net with a 2.18 GAA and .934 SV% in 1,099 minutes. Noah Davis is 9-4-0/2.81/.906 and Jackson Pundyk has a 2-0-0 record.
Red Lake has the second best powerplay at 22.5%. They lead the league in penalty kill with an 88.2% rating. It gets better. The Miners have allowed a league low 22 powerplay goals and have scored a league high 10 shorthanded. DeCorby leads the league with four shorties.
The Miners average 18.1 penalty minutes per game.
Fort Frances 8-25-5 21 pts .276 7th GF 105 GA 174 -69 PIMs 800 PP% 14.3 PK% 79.7 at Kenora 2-32-1 5 pts .071 8th GF 69 GA 237 -168 PIMs 980 PP% 9.3 PK% 69.9 Tuesday
Head to head: FFL 5-0-0, KEN 0-4-1
Fort Frances is eight points behind 6th place Wisconsin and the Lumberjacks have three games in hand. They enter this tilt winless in three games.
Clark Scaddan leads the team in point production with 33 in 36 games (14 goals). Brady Krentz and Jack Wood have 28 points each, and rookie Brody Lindal has 25 combined points and 14 goals. Rookies Pierce Gouin and Evan Kabel have 15 points as does former North Star Magnus Pearson.
Jack Orchard has a 4-16-2 record with 4.40 GAA and .895 save percentage. Lukas Toth is 2-7-2 with 4.46/.892 split and Gunner Paradis is 2-2-1 with a 4.57/.894 log.
Fort Frances has a 14.3% powerplay and 79.7% PK. The Lakers average 21.1 penalty minutes per game.
Kenora has 35 games in the books and are on a five-game slide after their 3-1 win over Thunder Bay at the Gardens.
Aaron Bertschinger continues to shine offensively with 14 goals and 14 assists in 34 games. Brayden Mackay has 23 points. John Paul Scaringi has 22 points. Defenceman Braden Swampy has nine goals to go with eight helpers. The expansion Islanders are a touch below two goals per game.
Matthew Stephens has all of Kenora’s points with two wins and a shootout loss in his 17 games played. He needs 16 minutes to hit 1,000. Kaden King and Connor Dunham-Fox have 563 and 401 net minutes respectively.
The Islanders are at 9.3% on the powerplay and 69.9% on the penalty kill. Kenora averages 28.0 penalty minutes per game.