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Layne Young leads North Stars to 2-1 victory in game one

Mar 20, 2016 | 9:29 AM

The Battleford North Stars hadn’t played a game in 13 days when the puck dropped in game one of their playoff series against the Kindersley Klippers, but you wouldn’t have known it the way they came flying out of the gate.

Despite a 22-5 shot advantage after the first period, the North Stars were unable to solve the stellar goaltending of Nathan Hargrave, who kept his team in the game.

It didn’t take long into the second period for the North Stars to get on the board. After starting the period on a short five-on-three power play, the North Stars found themselves down two men shortly after.

Levi Kleiboer and Layne Young were called for penalties at the same whistle, sending the North Stars to a four-on-three penalty kill. 1:06 later it became a five-on-three advantage for the Klippers. While they moved the puck well, they weren’t able to solve Tyler Fuhr.

Just moments after Young and Kleiboer came out of the box they found themselves on a two-on-one rush. Kleiboer held the puck on the right wing before centring for Young who tapped it past Hargrave to open the scoring at 2:59.

Just over two minutes later, the SJHL’s rookie of the year was at it again. After Igor Leonenko took the puck away along the left wing boards in the Klippers zone, he centred for Young who danced around the Klippers defenceman and came in alone on Hargrave.

Young’s original shot beat Hargrave over the shoulder but hit the crossbar. The puck rebounded and was sitting behind Hargrave for Young to knock home his second of the game to extend the lead to 2-0.

Six minutes later the North Stars thought they had made it 3-0 after Rory Davidson cut to the net and tucked the puck past Hargrave, but Davidson was instead called for goalie interference and sent to the box.

The score stayed 2-0 until the late stages of the game when the Klippers cut into the lead. Josh Hayward appeared to bank the puck in off Fuhr from below the goal line with 1:10 on the clock.

The Klippers pulled Hargrave off the ensuing faceoff and were putting pressure on the North Stars, but an ill-advised goalie interference penalty by Dexter Bricker was the final nail in the coffin for the Klippers as the North Stars held on for the 2-1 win.

The North Stars now head south for game two in Kindersley Saturday night. The team is riding a 12-game winning streak heading into Saturday’s tilt and will look to improve on their power play which went 0-for-9 in game one, and has scored just twice in 31 attempts over their last five games.

Email: cjnbsports@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @craig_beauch