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Grzybowski, Johnson lead North Stars to game 3 win over Red Wings

Mar 20, 2018 | 11:52 PM

They had to kill off penalty after penalty all night long and also had a goal called back for a high-stick, but nonetheless the Battlefords North Stars persevered on Tuesday night at Crescent Point Place in Weyburn, taking down the Red Wings in game three by a 4-1 score.

The second-seeded North Stars now lead the best-of-7 quarter-final series 3-0, with game four set for Wednesday night.

“The way the guys answered after a disallowed goal is just a huge testament to the character in that room,” North Stars assistant coach Boyd Wakelin said in the post-game interview on CJNB/CJNS. “Lots of times you see things like that happen to a team and it starts to unravel a bit but our guys just stuck with it.”

The North Stars got a goal from Cole Johnson just 1:41 into the game and then got another goal from Johnson just 1:12 into the second period.

They also were handed five straight penalties before a single call went against the home side.

“We just controlled our emotions better tonight. We didn’t get running around when we took those penalties tonight,” Wakelin said. “We finished the first period and the second period on the penalty kill where for the entire two minutes they couldn’t get into our end so I think that not only got our guys jacked up but it takes the wind out of their sails a bit.

“I think the guys rallied around the big kills.”

The North Stars penalty kill finished the night a perfect 7-for-7, after going just 10-for-14 in the first two games of the series.

Much of that successfull PK was thanks to their goaltender, as Joel Grzybowski turned in his best performance of the season with 27 saves on 28 shots, more than one of which was a save-of-the-year candidate.

“They say your best penalty killer is your goalie: it was a treat to watch,” Wakelin said. “If the video feed is good enough there’s probably three we should be sending in to TSN. That was unbelievable. The one in the first where they’re on the power play and they get it in front and chip it to the back door and the guy’s got a wide open net, you’re already thinking, ‘OK, 1-1,’ and he shoots and your trying to process that [Grzybowski] actually dove across and gloved it. Unbelievable.”

With all those saves and all those successfull kills, the game was still very much within reach late in the third period, after Wings forward Jeremy Velazquez scored on a breakaway to cut the North Stars lead to 2-1.

But Battlefords locked it down and got two empty-net goals, one from Layne Young and one from MacGregor Sinclair, to seal the win and put the Wings on the brink of elimination.

“Up by a goal in the third period, just got to lock it down and play smart and not take any chanes,” Wakelin said. “The guys did a good job [of that].”

Keith Anderson was the only North Star other than Johnson to record two points, as the 6’4″ forward had two assists (plus he had the disallowed goal).

Game four of the series is set for Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., where the North Stars will lock to sweep the Red Wings for the second straight season. Last year, they beat Weyburn 4-3 to pull off the sweep.

“I think we’ve been doing a great job these three games of playing simple hockey,” Wakelin said. “And [tonight] I think we did a good job of right off the bat, just getting pucks in deep and throwing the body on their ‘D’ so we can start wearing down, guys like [Mike] Eskra, he logs a ton of minutes for them.

 

 

 nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11