Iron Rangers edge North Stars in SIJHL home opener shootout

Nick Stockert finally brought an end to the 2015-16 Superior International Junior Hockey League home opener for the Minnesota Iron Rangers with his goal in the seventh round of a shootout at the Hoyt Lakes Arena Friday (Sept. 25) night.

The goal lifted the host Iron Rangers to a 3-2 edge against the visiting Thunder Bay North Stars and boosted the team’s record to a perfect 4-0-0-0 on the season. However, three of those four wins have come in either overtime or shootout.

Thunder Bay owned leads of 1-0 and 2-1 after the first two periods respectively, but Tristyn Sabina, 19, from Kansas City, MO pulled the Iron Rangers even near the halfway mark of the final period.

With nothing settled in overtime, teams went to shootout, both getting a goal in the third round to push it to a sudden death format. Both added another in the fifth round to keep things going and that set the stage for Stockert’s seventh round heroics.

Eric Madison, 20, from St. Paul, MN scored the other Iron Rangers regulation time goal with other shootout tallies by Sabina and Alex Arnold, 20, from Omaha, NE.

Brendan Gillis, 17, from Ontario and Jesse Talakoski, 19, from Thunder Bay scored the regulation goals for the North Stars with shootout markers for Brad Arabia, 19, from Thunder Bay and Kenny Turner, 20, from Thunder Bay.

Kyle Carignan, 19, from Oregon, WI made 25 saves through regulation and overtime and then five more in the shootout to grab the win for the Iron Rangers and Riley Corbin, 20, from Thunder Bay handled 38 during the game with four more stops in the shootout.

After a quick nod of appreciation from the home fans, the Iron Rangers are scheduled to hit the road to play Saturday (Sept. 26) at Fort Frances against the defending champion Lakers and then wrap up another three-game weekend at Thunder bay against the North Stars on Sunday.