The North Stars lost 5-3 to the Broncos last night at the Elgar Petersen Arena in Humboldt (Byron Hildebrand/Facebook).

By Austin Mattes

5-3 loss

North Stars can’t hold on after late surge from Broncos

Feb 16, 2025 | 2:27 AM

Despite coming out to a strong start, the Battlefords North Stars couldn’t hold on last night at the Elgar Petersen Arena and ended up losing 5-3 to the Humboldt Broncos in their eighth and final meeting of the season.

Coming out for the first period, things looked promising for the North Stars as they controlled the pace of the game early on and scored the opening goal, coming from Anthony Campbell shorthanded to take a 1-0 lead.

Just like the night prior, Battlefords continued to dominate throughout the rest of first period and ended up grabbing another goal, this time from Colton Getzlaff to make it 2-0 going into the intermission.

In the second, the North Stars slowly started to lose momentum though as the Broncos scored just over two minutes into the period to close the gap to 2-1. Humboldt then continued to put pressure on and despite the North Stars having their fair share of chances, it was the Broncos who struck the nylon again to tie the game 2-2 and end off the second.

Starting out for the third period, it was anyone’s games with both teams trading rushes and getting great chances. Still, neither team was able to score untill the North Stars got a chance on the powerplay and converted on it with a goal from Nikita Ivashchenko to retake the lead 3-2.

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Throughout the rest of the period, it seemed like the North Stars had things under control, but then the switch flipped for the Broncos and they got back-to-back goals in the final four minutes of the game to take the lead 4-3.

The North Stars then pulled their goalie in the final minute for an extra attacker in an attempt to tie the game but weren’t successful and the Broncos scored an empty netter to take the 5-3 win.

Battlefords got outshot by Humboldt 49 to 40, went 1/5 on the powerplay and stopped the Broncos all five times on the penalty kill.

Justen Maric mad some highlight reel saves down the stretch to keep the North Stars in the game and overall stopped 44/48 shots.

After the loss, The North Stars record now sits at 23-19-3-2 on the season for 51 points, putting them back to sixth overall in the league.

Their next game is this Tuesday, Feb. 18 at the Access Communications Centre as they take on the Melfort Mustangs with puck drop at 7:30 p.m.

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austin.mattes@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @AustinMattes