By Nathan Kanter

North Stars explode for eight goals vs. Klippers

Oct 26, 2016 | 6:38 AM

The goals came early and often in the North Stars 8-2 thrashing of the Kindersley Klippers on Tuesday night.

Almost nothing went wrong all night, as the team’s power play was clicking, the defence held the Klippers to just 18 shots on goal, and 14 different players recorded at least one point.

“We talked about all four lines going and … usually we don’t have quite the buy in from everybody [but] I thought that was key tonight,” North Stars head coach Nate Bedford said after the win. “Some of the guys – I wouldn’t say necessarily have played poorly – but some of those guys that don’t get on the score sheet very often I thought were real good for us.”

Particularly impressive were a pair of Connors: Connor Logan and Connor Jensen.

Logan scored his eighth and ninth goals of the season, while also adding an assist. After notching nine points in seven September games, Logan had slowed a bit in October, with just five points in nine games, until Tuesday’s three point-effort.

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“I think if you look at it, [Logan] didn’t kill a lot of penalties in those games where he’s not scoring. I think he’s a guy that the more he plays, the better he is in all areas,” Bedford said. “He likes to put the puck in the net, but you know what, when he doesn’t, he’s just as good defensively.

“Points don’t really matter when teams get two. That’s what we talked about today after the second period.”

Jensen, meanwhile, returned to the lineup on Friday against Humboldt after missing five games because of injury and has often looked like the best defenceman out there. Particularly impressive from him on Tuesday was the team’s fifth goal, where Jensen came down the left wing side, used his speed and cut to the net, allowing Logan to clean up the garbage.

“[Jensen] has been pretty frustrated with himself for a while and he might have been one of our top ‘D’ for the last couple games, especially at some critical times,” Bedford said.

Other than depth, the biggest positive on Tuesday was the power play, which went 4-for-7. It was the second time this season the North Stars power play has tallied four power play markers in one game.

Associate coach “Braeden Johnson does a great job with the power play. He really feels that part of the game,” Bedford said. “After that you’ve got to look at Coby Downs coming back and now on our power play up top we’re pretty good. You can put five or six ‘D’ back there at the point and have [Layne] Young on the one side, Downs is on the other – what do you do?”

Young and Downs certainly pose a threat for the opposition, but not just on the power play.

Young extended his point streak to seven games – 11 points – and his goal streak to four games, six goals.

Downs’ four game goal streak came to an end but he extended his point streak to six games. Since returning from Omaha of the USHL, Downs hasn’t played one game yet without registering a point, tallying 11 points over his six total games played.

The North Stars will play eight of their next 10 games at home, including back to back home games on Friday and Saturday, against Yorkton and Notre Dame, respectively.

This comes after playing 11 of the team’s first 16 games away from home.

“You kind of get thrown into the fire so to speak with the guys being on the road so much and I thought we fared pretty well on the road,” Bedford said. “We played good [at home] against Humboldt and now again today so the last two games we’re outscoring teams 13-3 so you’ve got to be happy about that. We’ve just got to keep the momentum going and make sure that we don’t make excuses and we don’t take shifts off.”

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