THUNDER BAY – Three shots in and the Thunder Bay North Stars had already built a 3-0 lead.
While they couldn’t keep up that kind of pace, with a start like that they were never in danger, earning their second straight Superior International Junior Hockey League triumph with a 7-4 home-ice win over the Wisconsin Lumberjacks at Fort William Gardens.
Cohen Tangedal, Tristan Bear and Cameron Dial score 5:30 apart, Dial’s goal coming on the North Stars first power play of the night.
The Lumberjacks (12-19-5) were lucky to escape the first period only down three. Both Christian Rapp and Edison Weeks, the SIJHL’s leading point-getter, rang pucks off the post in the opening stanza.
They also killed off a minute-long two-man disadvantage to close out the period.
“It was a great start,” said Tangedal, an Okotoks, Alta. native in his first season in Thunder Bay.
“I scored on my first shift of the game, just a great bounce right to me. It was a great start to the game. But we didn’t play our best, I would say. Wisconsin had more shots than us early and ended up with more shots throughout the whole game. For us that’s just terrible. It shouldn’t happen.”
North Stars coach Rob DeGagne was also impressed with the first five or six minutes of the contest, but the team still has some work to do and did not put a full 60 minutes in, he said.
“It’s always nice when your first three or four shots go in, whatever, right? But the message is we’ve got to get into better work habits and I don’t think we had a good work ethic tonight, for the most part,” DeGagne said.
“When we did work, we were good, but we only worked part of the time.”
Special teams, particularly the penalty kill, was an issue.
In the second, the Lumberjacks scored twice on the power play, needing a combined 13 seconds of man-advantage time to put the puck past Thunder Bay goaltender Ben Laurette.
The good news is twice the North Stars responded within a minute.
“I think we were OK on the power play tonight, but we were great. We had a lot of chances. We were better on the power play later in the game, but we were in the penalty box lots too.”
Ryan Kayser struck first for Wisconsin, at 5:45 of the second, taking a high, hard shot from just inside the blueline that sailed through traffic before bouncing off the twine.
Nineteen second later E.J. Paddington answered with a wraparound, restoring Thunder Bay’s three-goal lead.
Collin Baker notched the Lumberjacks second goal at 12:23, only to have it wiped out by Connor Larrett’s sixth of the season, the goal coming just 29 seconds later.
“We lost important faceoffs and it was bing-bing, it was in the net. We talked about it before the game, that it was our special teams that was going to win it for us, the penalty kill and the power play,” DeGagne said.
Alex Remenda added the North Stars second power-play goal of the night with 6:21 to go in the second and Thunder Bay took a 6-2 lead after 40 minutes.
Wisconsin captain Dillon Phillips tallied his 20th of the season midway through the third to close the gap to three, but Laurette stood tall between the pipes the rest of the way to hold the Lumberjacks at bay.
Thunder Bay’s Garrett Voisey scored 69 seconds later for Thunder Bay and Wisconsin’s Kaden Postal rounded out the scoring on the power play with 1:20 left in regulation.
The Lumberjacks fell to 12-19-5, while Thunder Bay (26-10-4) climbed to within a point of second place Kam River, ()29-1-0) who holds two games in hand.
Star gazing: Thunder Bay was playing without rookie phenom Easton Mikus, who was serving the second game of a two-game suspension for an incident last Friday against Kam River.
Laurette faced plenty of rubber in the North Stars net, stopping 39 of 43 shots fired his way. Riley Burnett wasn’t as fortunate, good on just 30 of 37 Thuner Bay shots.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Thunder Bay, Tangedal 10 (unassisted) 1:01. 2. Thunder Bay, Bear 4 (Trahiotis) 3:06. 3. Thunder Bay, Dial 4 (Weeks, Jordan) 6:31 pp. Penalties: Wyatt WIS (holding) 5:16, Larrett TB (tripping) 13:18, Baker WIS (tripping) 18:05, Davidson WIS (hooking0 19:00,
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 4. Wisconsin, Kayser 9 (Fowler, Phillips) 5:45 pp. 5. Thunder Bay, Paddington 22 (Buffone, Larrett) 6:04. 6. Wisconsin, Baker 13 (Fowler, Postal) 12:23 pp. 7. Thunder Bay, Larrett 6 (Paddington, Tangedal) 12:49. 8. Thunder Bay, Remenda 6 (Skillestad, Dial) 13:39 pp. Penalties: Weeks TB (high sticking) 5:44, Kayser WIS (roughing) 6:07, Kayser WIS (slashing) 8:16, Weeks TB (tripping) 12:11, Corcoran WIS (interference) 12:52, Dial TB (cross checking) 18:23.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 9. Wisconsin, Phillips 20 (unassisted) 8:45. 10. Thunder Bay, Voisey 2 (Remenda, Weeks) 9:54. 11. Wisconsin, Postal (Baker, Phillips) 18:40 pp. Penalties: Skillestad TB (roughing) 6:11, Sheriff TB (cross checking double minor) 13:17, Trahiotis TB (slashing) 17:39,
GAME DATA – SOG – Wisconsin 11-14-18-43, Thunder Bay 13-16-8-37; Power plays (goals-chances) – Wisconsin (3-7), Thunder Bay (2-5); Goaltenders – Wisconsin: Riley Burnett, Thunder Bay: Ben Laurette; A: 363.
