By Nathan Kanter

North Stars remain undefeated in preseason

Sep 10, 2016 | 2:01 PM

Another game, another win for the Battlefords North Stars. They continued to roll through the pre-season thanks to a 5–2 road win over the Kindersley Klippers on Friday, Sept.9.

Their division rivals didn’t put up much of a fight. Most of the Klippers roster were rookies. Just one player from their 2016 playoff team was dressed for Friday’s pre-season contest. Ten players were born in 1998 or later.

Meanwhile, the North Stars had 10 players from their 2016 playoff roster dressed on Friday.

Despite the advantage, the North Stars came out flat, unable to capitalize on multiple powerplay opportunities in the first period.

They did, however, get a first period goal on a 2-on-1 rush, after Troy Gerein made a great cross-crease pass to Jayden Nachtegaele, who one-timed it easily into the back of the net.

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Connor Logan made it 2–0 after a nifty toe drag late in the second period, but the storyline after two periods of play was, without a doubt, how sluggish the North Stars were against a much younger opponent.

“Overall, we need to be better,” North Stars assistant coach Braeden Johnson said after the win. “The first two periods weren’t our best.”

The other storyline on Friday was the number of penalties called.

The whistles from the men in stripes were heard early and often, and continued throughout the contest, for both sides.

“I thought the refereeing really got in the way of probably a good game,” Klippers head coach and general manager Geoff Grimwood said. “Battlefords played extremely well and you can see that they’re going to have another really strong team [this] year.”

Eventually, with all the calls, Battlefords woke up and starting potting some goals in the third period.

It was forward Tysen Smith who got the ball rolling 39 seconds into the third, by making it a 3–0 lead. Not long after, Bryce Hall added a powerplay marker of his own to increase the North Stars lead to four. Cody Spagrud capped off the flurry with a goal halfway through the final frame to make it a 5–0 game.

“You’ve got to give some credit to our leadership, again, where they got the guys back on track,” Johnson said. “In the third period, that’s kind of the way we want to play this year.”

The Klippers added two third period goals, but the contest was well out of reach by then.

With the win, the North Stars improve to 4–0–0 in the pre-season, but it’s clear the teams they’ve faced haven’t had as many veterans in the lineup as they have.

“Each team has their own philosophy on how they want to approach the pre-season and ours is a little different,” Johnson said. “With a new head coach with Nate Bedford, he wants to get a feel for the guys and with [Klippers coach] Geoff Grimwood, he’s in a different position this year.”

On Saturday, Kindersley visits the Civic Centre for a rematch, where the pace should pick up at least a bit.

“We’ll have a few of our returning veterans in [tomorrow’s lineup],” Grimwood said. “Certainly a few changes, but nothing drastic.”

It will be the North Stars final pre-season game.

Puck drop is set for 7:30.

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11