By Nathan Kanter

North Stars clinch 1st overall after win over Melfort

Feb 18, 2017 | 2:26 AM

A slow start wasn’t enough to prevent the Battlefords North Stars from locking up the top spot in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League regular season, as they rebounded to beat Melfort 2-1 on Friday night.

The win gives Battlefords 87 points, meaning the second-place Nipawin Hawks cannot mathematically catch them in the standings.

The number one seed, which was clinched with six games still remaining, means the North Stars will have home ice guaranteed throughout the SJHL playoffs.

“It’s good to emotionally get it over with,” North Stars head coach Nate Bedford said on officially claiming first. “We knew it was going to happen [eventually], it’s just you don’t want to get into a situation where we lose tonight and then we play a hungry Humboldt team tomorrow and all of a sudden you’re sitting a few days. You can’t let things escalate so we really wanted to make sure that we could get this psychological milestone out of the way.”

Although the shots on goal favoured Battlefords 11-4 after one period of play, the chances – and the scoreboard – did not.

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Reed Gunville opened the scoring on a power play for Melfort when he fired a shot from the hashmarks on the boards through a screen and past goaltender Taryn Kotchorek.

Battlefords also looked way too lackadaisical in the opening 20 minutes.

“We didn’t come out flying but they did. I thought they played really well in the first period,” Bedford said. “They were all over us.

“We were a little bit complacent. We had opportunities to move the puck quick and we weren’t. We were over thinking. Over thinking and not moving, it’s a bad mix. It was a bad first period.”

Everything changed in the second.

First, Jared Blaquiere took a Connor Logan hand off and shot against the grain top corner from the high slot. It was Blaquiere’s third goal as a North Stars in 12 games, whereas he had three in 31 games for La Ronge prior to the trade to Battlefords.

Then, Logan would pot home a missed shot from Blaquiere that ricocheted lively off the end boards. That second goal came after over a minute of sustained possession from the North Stars during which multiple goals could have been scored.

“I thought our second period was as good as we can play,” Bedford said. “We came out firing and if [Mustangs] goalie [Evan Plotnik] wasn’t as good as he was tonight, I think the score is a little bit different.”

Plotnik continued to keep his team in the game in the third, stopping all 18 shots thrown his way but Melfort could not tie the game. The California native finished with 41 saves on 43 shots.

“Poor [Coby] Downs and [Layne] Young had more opportunities than some teams do in a game,” Bedford joked about his top line’s inability to crack the scoresheet despite multiple scoring chances. “That’s a playoff-type goalie performance. We’re going to get into those situations where a goalie is going to stand on his head like that and we’re going to have to win 2-1 games. So I think we got to kind of foresee some situations in the playoffs that we’re going to have.”

The top line certainly had their chances, but there was no doubt the second line of Jared Blaquiere, Reed Delainey and Connor Logan were spectacular, perhaps even more so, according to Bedford.

“Consistently, I thought Delainey’s line was our best line,” Bedford said. “I thought Delainey was flying out there again. I think [Blaquiere] is starting to find his niche with our team.

“Jeez I wish [Blaquiere] wasn’t 20. I’ll tell you that. But he was great and then [Logan] can stickhandle in a phone booth. He’s unbelievable. At one point he had three guys surrounding him and he stickhandled through all of them twice and looked like he wanted to do it again but he handed it off.”

Logan and Blaquiere each had two point nights, bringing their season totals to 49 and 33 points, respectively.

First place may be locked up now, but if wins keep on coming, the record books will be the next victim. The North Stars need just one win to tie the all-time franchise mark of 44, and they need just four points to tie the all-time franchise mark of 91. Battlefords has six games to do it.

Humboldt is the next opponent on Saturday at the Civic Centre, who have yet to beat the North Stars in five tries this year. They have only managed seven goals in the five contests, while Battlefords has scored 19.

NorSask North Stars hockey gets underway at 7:15 p.m. with the Ultra Print pre-game show on CJNB/CJNS. Puck drop is 7:30 p.m.