By Nathan Kanter

North Stars narrowly win season opener

Sep 17, 2016 | 8:44 AM

It wasn’t pretty, but it worked; the Battlefords North Stars won their season opener against the Kindersley Klippers 3-2.

Layne Young’s two goals lifted the home team over the Klippers at the Civic Centre on Friday, Sept. 16.

North Stars head coach Nate Bedford said he was thrilled with the win, but the Klippers put up a good fight.

“I thought they outworked us, they were more physical than us, they blocked more shots,” he said. “They did the little things that you need to have at the end of the year to be successful.”

The North Stars allowed 30 shots against, and even made a goaltending change four minutes before the end of the second after Ryan Rewerts allowed the second goal on his 20th shot.

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“I’m a big believer in managing the game and I just felt that we needed to slow things down a little bit,” Bedford said when asked why he replaced Rewerts with Taryn Kotchorek.  

“Initially I was going to just change for the period but [Kotchorek] came in a played really well and we stuck with it. Sometimes we just like to shake things up to slow things down. I love both our goalies. They’re a 1A, 1B right now. They both have great attitudes. They both want to compete. They both want to be number one,” he added.

Although Battlefords was outworked and out hit, they did get the all important two points in the standings.

“I think when you finds ways to win when you don’t play your style of game or the way that we drew it up … that’s always a good sign,” Bedford said. “We weren’t perfect and we still won and we’ve got to be happy with that.”

Rewerts definitely looked shaky at times but Kotchorek stopped all 10 shots he faced in 24 minutes of work.

“Usually when someone comes out it’s because the other team has a lot of momentum so your first thought about going in is just ‘keep the guys composed, slow everything down,’” Kotchorek said. “I thought I was really composed and always ready at all times – you never know when the puck is going to be turned over in your zone.”

If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how the goaltending battle shakes out this season.

Young is aware of at least one area that needs to get better before Saturday’s rematch in Kindersley at 7:30 p.m.

“We definitely need to be more physical [on Saturday],” Young said. “When we fore check we have a lot better chances.”

Saturday’s game can be heard live on CJNB/CJNS with the Ultra Print pre-game show getting started at 7:15 p.m.                                                                       

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