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North Stars hold off Hounds for sixth win in a row

Oct 30, 2016 | 9:01 AM

A slow start nearly came back to haunt the North Stars on Saturday night.

After a snooze fest from them and the Notre Dame Hounds in the first period, the North Stars fought through the daze and held on for a 2-1 win over their divisional opponent.

It was the sixth straight win for Battlefords, pushing their record to an impressive 14-5-0, just one point back of the league leading Humboldt Broncos.

“A streak is a streak until it’s over with and then you start another one so we’re not going to worry about it too much,” head coach Nate Bedford said following the win. “Every game is a fresh slate … and we’re just going to take it period by period. We’ve got to get better at starting strong and finishing strong as opposed to starting slow and finishing strong.”

Heading into the game, one key for the North Stars was to try to slow down two dynamic Hounds players: rookie Adam Dawe and veteran Ben Duperreault.

Adam Dawe leads all rookies with 22 points, putting him in a tie for fourth most league-wide and Duperreault leads the league in scoring with 29 points.

Although they did each have a couple of opportunities, in the end the home side was successful in keeping the two off the scoresheet.

“We really dedicated ourselves to making sure that we didn’t give them too many opportunities, especially in the second and third and I thought we did that,” Bedford said.

The Hounds were coming off an overtime win on the road against Kindersley the night before, which had been a physical affair.

Hounds head coach Clint Mylymok said his team played the neutral zone trap against the North Stars, which is a boring type of game he admitted, partly because of how their game on Friday went.

“For today, it was really clog up the neutral zone – bore it for the fans a little bit,” Mylymok said. “I thought we did a good job for the most part. The key to me was where we put pucks in our end. They scored one goal because we didn’t clear it and we had all the time in the world and their second goal was on our stick again. It was an easy play and we outstretched our weak side winger and it rammed right to their D.”

 

It was North Stars captain Kendall Fransoo who made the Hounds pay for both of those giveaways, as he notched two similar looking goals in two different periods.

First he picked off a slow clearing attempt in the middle frame while on a power play before sniping a wrist shot over goaltender Jordan Greenfield-Flemon’s glove. Then in the third it was a similar looking game winning shot over the glove again.

“Just when you think you’ve seen everything from him, he’s steps up,” Bedford said of his captains performance. “I don’t know that it was [Fransoo’s] best game either but there’s just something about that kid that he just finds a way to elevate his game at the most important times. Two seeing eye shots, obviously the game winner, and I thought he was exceptional all third period.”

The total shots on goal for the game were officially tallied as 43-22 in favour of Battlefords.

But Mylymok said he was satisfied with how he shut down the North Stars offensive weapons.

“With our goalie in net, he’s 6’4” [so] if we leave shots to the outside, we think he’s in a good spot,” Mylymok said. “I thought a lot of shots were from the outside. We could tell at times they were getting a little frustrated.

“But their ‘D’ is really good. Fransoo had a couple of nice shots through traffic and we didn’t block one, so there’s your difference.”

On the other side of things, North Stars goaltender Joel Gryzbowski was solid again, improving his record to 7-1 by stopping 21 of 22 shots he faced.

He may not have made 41 saves like his counterpart did, but his saves were very timely, especially his breakaway stop on Duperreault in the second period while on a power play.

“I think our goaltending has been fantastic,” Bedford said. “[We] don’t necessarily have to have 40 save nights but it’s timely and it’s game changers. Letting in a soft goal can really deflate a team. So yeah, I thought [Gryzbowski] was real good today and I thought Kotchorek was real good yesterday.”

Gryzbowski’s .948 save percentage leads the league, as does his 1.26 goals-against-average. Kotchorek’s 2.14 GAA is third in the league and both goaltenders have two shutouts this season.

The North Stars will travel to La Ronge to take on the Ice Wolves on Friday before heading home for a Saturday tilt with the rematch with the Humboldt Broncos, who fell to Battlefords 5-1 last Friday.

 

 

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