Dealing with opponents speed a priority for North Stars at WCC

Although the focus is on themselves and focusing on defence first, as it has been all year long, the coaches and players aren’t going into the tournament blind.

If the North Stars are going to finish as two of the top five teams and advance to the national tournament, the RBC Cup, they know they’re going to have to focus on dealing with the speed of their opponents.

“We expect speed and that fits into our game plan very well,” Bedford said. “We play well defensively. We forecheck hard, we skate back into our zone and pick up guys pretty quickly, so I think the speed we should be able to mitigate in my opinion.

“[It] just means better gap control and making sure that we’ve got good back support from our forwards… We’ll be in trouble if we’re not able to adapt to their speed.”

They may have not seen their four opponents directly opposite them quite yet, but Bedford has seen video of all of them.

Physicality has been a staple of the North Stars all year long but in dealing with the expected speed, Battlefords needs to be careful.

“If you try to be too aggressive, I think what ends up happening is you lose one-on-one battles with skill players,” Bedford said. “Being physical is great when it’s there but if you’re running around trying to make things happen, like I said, you’re going to lose one-on-one battles. Other teams are going to look for small 2-on-1s all over the ice and if we create them by playing stupid or haphazardly, then I think we’re going to be in trouble.”

The schedule has the North Stars beginning the tournament with a Saturday evening game against the host Penticton Vees, where the building is expected to be packed. Penticton won the BCHL title in seven games over Chilliwack on Tuesday night.

Battlefords will then face Portage on Sunday afternoon, followed by Brooks on Tuesday afternoon and Chilliwack on Thursday afternoon.

Bedford said it doesn’t matter that they have to face the hosts first.

“You’ve got to play everyone eventually, so I think if you start trying to determine when you want to play teams and what time, then you start losing focus a little bit,” he said. “We start with the hosts and it’ll be a good crowd there. Obviously they’re going pretty strong so it’s going to be fun.”

Because the tournament is a round robin where the North Stars face four different opponents in six days, another focus is on being able to recover if there are small lapses and taking things one shift at a time.

“The round robin is done so quickly. You feel like it’s a long time but it actually isn’t a long time,” Bedford said. “So if you lose a game or you have a bad shift or a bad period, you’ve got to be able to turn it off right away and worry about the next one.

“Just taking it shift to shift right now is important for us. When we start looking at what happens if we lose and what happens if this team wins… I think we’ll be in trouble.”

Right now, the team is confident heading in.

“I think they’re very confident with what they did – 12-0 in the playoffs is obviously a testament to how dedicated they were and how disciplined they were,” Bedford said. “Right now, they’re just looking at, ‘OK, we took a big breath, that’s over now. It’s now the next playoffs.’ As happy as we are with what we did yesterday, today’s a great day and we’ve got to make sure we do our best job so that we can get to the RBC Cup.”

As far as injuries go for Battlefords, defenceman Zach Nedelec is still out and goaltender Taryn Kotchorek should be ready to go after a freak hand accident off the ice.

“My opinion is if he wants to play he can play at this time,” Bedford said. “So everything is good.”

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW

@NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

Dealing with opponents speed a priority for North Stars at WCC

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