By Nathan Kanter

AAA Sharks pick up lone point over weekend

Nov 1, 2016 | 10:00 AM

It’s happened before to the AAA Sharks and in their home opener it happened again: a final score that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Saturday’s 6-2 loss was simply not indicative of the play in the Sharks game against the Notre Dame Hounds.

On Sunday, they would get another crack at the Hounds at Battleford Arena.

Despite firing 54 shots on goal, the hockey gods just wouldn’t budge, handing the Sharks another loss, this time in a shootout.

“We had our chances for sure,” Sharks head coach Gary Berggren said following Sunday’s 3-2 loss. “We struggle around the net and we’re working hard on trying to fix that but it is a process.”

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On Saturday, the Sharks allowed two shorthanded goals that would ultimately sway things in the wrong direction. Despite a magnificent third period where they outshot the visitors 17-6, they just couldn’t get back into the game.

“The two shorthanded goals kind of put us on our back,” Berggren said. “We came out in the third and really played well…but in the second period after those two goals, it really set us back.”

Coming away with just a single point in two games was certainly a tough pill to swallow.

But there were some positives, including the power play, which finally clicked in both games, going 1-for-5 on Saturday and 2-for-11 on Sunday.

“Today [the power play] was really good compared to previous games,” Berggren said on Sunday. “We’ve been working on it in the last week here and it’s like everything: you spend time on it to improve it and it is improving, it’s just we can’t work on everything. We don’t have time for everything.”

Sharks forward Jordan Kulbida had two of the team’s three power play goals in the two games, while Ali Aitken had the other power play marker. Rookie Jessie Herner had the other goal on the weekend and scored at even strength.

Other than a strong power play, another positive was the team’s stamina.

“We were really good conditioning-wise right to the end,” Berggren said. “We worked hard right to the end and the same thing in [Saturday’s] game. [In] our third period in [Saturday’s] game, we really took it to them.”

It was also nice to finally play in front of the home crowd, something the team will get to do again in another double-header this upcoming weekend against the Regina Rebels.

The Rebels are currently 2-2-1-2 and have two players in the top-10 in scoring in the league in Kennedy Bobyck and Miranda Hatt.

“They have a really good top line so we’re going to have to key in on them,” Berggren said. “It’s going to be another fast team so it’ll be us again needing to be physical and slow them down.”

The first game of the weekend is on Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. and the second is Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Both games will be played at Battleford Arena.

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