By Gary Moskalyk
Kam River faces Dryden Wednesday, and Sioux Lookout and Dryden play a home-and-home series on the weekend as the three SIJHL heavyweights square off in head-to-head matches this week, part of a ten-game slate.
Red Lake treks (772 km) to Wisconsin for three games, Thunder Bay entertains the Lakers and Kam River is off to Kenora at the Moncrief Construction Sports Centre on Friday and Saturday.
Kam River 6-1-0 12 pts .857 3rd GF 37 GA 18 +19 PIMs 167 PP% 15.4 PK% 84.4 at Dryden 8-1-0 16 pts .889 1st GF 45 GA 15 +30 PIMs 227 PP% 23.6 PK% 84.9
Circle all three Dryden games on your calendar. Two six-game winning streaks are on the line in this particular contest. The two top offensive teams in the SI are also facing two top defensive teams all in one package.
Kam River brings a balanced attack. Jett Mintenko is averaging a goal a game, adding two assists and doesn’t have a penalty to his name. Jeremy Dunmore also has nine points (3G-6A). Ryan Doucette (3G-5A) and Max Wright (1G-7A) round out the four Walleye in the top 20. Doucette’s hat trick on Friday broke a four-game scoreless streak.
Seven more players have between five and seven points. Daxton Lang, Brydon Bell, Kaden Goodwin, Nickolas Fagnilli, Edwin Liang, Carter Poddubny and Riley Borody provide offensive depth.
Ashton Sadauskas is carrying the load in net with 4-1-0 record with a 2.80 GAA. Travis VanderZwaag has a 2-0-0 record in his 120 minutes, allowing two goals a game while sporting a .939 save percentage.
First place Dryden’s 18 goals over the weekend plus the other 27 they had going in places a multitude of Ice Dogs in the scoring race. Max Roby has nine goals in nine games, one of three other players clicking along at a goal-a-game pace. Defenceman Sebastiano Biagi leads all rearguards in points with 11. Kaden Bandura joins Roby and Biagi in the 10-point club with 10 points each.
League-wide there are nine players with 10 or more points.
Sean Smith and Eli Antoine have eight points, Bryce Benfield, McLaren Paulsen and Carson Devine have seven each. Geoff Bjarnason, Elias Eisenbarth and Rylan Maier have six.
Ewan Soutar has 299 minutes in net and has maxed out his time there, sporting a 1.20 GAA and .957 SV% with four wins. Michael O’Sullivan has three wins, a 2.32 GAA and .914 SV%.
Sioux Lookout 7-0-1 15 pts .938 2nd GF 38 GA 20 + 18 PIMs 167 PP% 30.0 PK% 92.7 vs/at Dryden
The Bombers have not lost in regulation, and lead the league in winning percentage. They also lead the SIJHL in powerplay proficiency, clipping along at 30.0 per cent. They’ve allowed three powerplay goals in 41 times shorthanded and scored one shorthanded themselves. The lead the league in penalty killing as well.
A 7-6 Dryden win in OT on October 4th in Sioux Lookout is the only game separating the Bombers from being 1.000.
Sioux Lookout has the SI’s top line. Owen Riffel leads the league in goals with 11 and points, 18. Line mate Blake Burke leads the league with 10 assists and has 15 points. Connor Burke is at five goals and five helpers through eight games.
Defenceman Dayvan Bull got his first goal recently against Fort Frances. He’s been piling up the apples all season long, averaging one a game. Nolan Palmer has eight points (3G 5A). Jonah Smith has four goals and two helpers.
The Bombers have an excellent goaltending trio in Jack Osmond, Matthew Spencer-Dahl and Matthew Ofukany. Osmond is one of two goalies with a pair of shutouts (Soutar of Dryden is the other). His GAA is 2.24 and SV% is .927. Spencer-Dahl is 1.92/.935 and Ofukany 3.50/.885 in two games.
Fort Frances 0-6-1 1 pt .071 8th GF 9 GA 36 -27 PIMs 187 PP% 10.0 PK% 84.6 at Thunder Bay 3-4-0 6 pts .429 5th GF 23 GA 22 +1 PIMs 120 PP% 15.6 PK% 85.3
Fort Frances battled back from two two-goal deficits against Sioux Lookout gaining their first point of the season in a road 4-3 SO loss. Perhaps it’ll be a page turner. The team is too good to stay at .071.
They’ve played all the top teams through seven games. They’re catching the North Stars just when Thunder Bay swept Red Lake in Red Lake.
With just nine team goals no single player with more than three points. Cobe Delaney has two goals and an assist in five games. Ryker Watt, Jack Wood and Emerson Evans also have three points.
The powerplay is only 10.0%. The penalty kill is a respectable 84.6% and it’s a good thing it is. The Lakers average 27.1 penalty minutes per game.
Through it all Jack Orchard and Lukas Toth have held the fort in net.
Thunder Bay has the league’s second best line. EJ Paddington has five goals and eight assists, Easton Mikus seven goals and five assists, and captain Edison Weeks has tucked in two and assisted on eight.
There’s a precipitous drop off from there. Defenceman Drew Caddo, Nolan Desjardins and Easton Glousher have three points each.
Keenan Marks sports a 2.55 GAA and .922 SV%. Ethan Barron has a win with a 3.29 goals against and .889 save percentage.
Two weekend road wins against Red Lake has the Stars well within the .500 range.
Thunder Bay is the least penalized team in the SIJHL with 120 PIMs in seven games–17.1 minutes per game.
Red Lake 4-3-1 9 pts .563 4th GF 26 GA 20 +6 PIMs 136 PP% 12.2 PK% 87.8 at Wisconsin 1-5-2 4 pts .250 6th GF 21 GA 38 -17 PIMs 170 PP% 6.5 PK% 79.5
The Miners maintained their above .500 winning percentage and plus/minus status (+6) despite dropping a regulation loss and an overtime loss to Thunder Bay last weekend.
Three Miners are averaging a point a game or better. Noah Tenney has nine points (3G 6A) through eight games. Blake Hiltermann is at four goals and four assists. Luke DeCorby has three goals and five helpers. Bryson Carlyle and Gavin McIntosh have six points each, Jared Burnett and Gabe Tanton have five.
Ethan Neitsch has been all world in net with a 1.66 GAA and .951 SV%. Unfortunately, he still doesn’t have a win. Goaltender Noah Davis has been added to the roster. The 18-year-old most recently played in the Alberta Junior Hockey League. Trent Boryszczuk has been the man in goal but hasn’t played in several games. He has all four team wins.
Wisconsin hasn’t won in six games and is in need of a victory. Head coach Doug Lein noted his roster is loaded with rookies. Indeed, they are, 15 of them. It’ll be a process for the Lumberjacks as they evolve over the course of the season.
Rookie Koen Burkholder leads the team in scoring with six points. He has quite the pedigree based on last season’s performance with Traverse City Central High (USHS-MI) where he scored 28 goals in 25 games, adding 10 assists. He’s an ’05 forward, 6’2″, 185 pounds. Fellow rookie Marshall Thomas has a goal and five assists. Veteran Ryan Kayser and rookie Connor Corcoran have five points each.
William Forrester is 1-2-1 in net this year. The Lumberjacks brought Jakob Barcelona and Rylen Freshwater to Norwest Arena last weekend. Friday’s 9-3 loss to the Fighting Walleye was a wipeout, but Barcelona made 38 saves in a 2-1 squeaker defeat on Saturday.
Kam River at Kenora 1-5-0 2 pts .167 7th GF 16 GA 46 -30 PIMs 190 PP% 12.5 PK% 69.8
Kenora will be in tough this weekend against the Fighting Walleye.
Aaron Bertschinger leads the team in scoring with four goals and three assists, figuring in nearly half of the Islanders 16 goals this season. Ryan Sinclair (3G 2A) and Keanu Woodhouse (1G 4A) are next in line.
Matthew Stephens has the team’s lone win. Stephens, Jero Rossi and Kaden King have all faced their share of rubber–64 a game through their first six contests.
The Islanders lead the SI in penalty minutes per game–190 in six contests–a 33.3 average.
Attendance at Moncrief Construction Sports Centre has averaged 622 through three home dates. After these two dates against Kam River in Kenora this weekend the Islanders will not play in Kenora again until November 25th. They’ll play five home games at Woodland Arena in Vermillion Bay, 93 km down highway 17, and four away games as well.