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Inconsistent effort still enough for North Stars to duplicate win

Nov 13, 2016 | 9:06 AM

The final score and the opponent may have been the same, but the effort from the North Stars in their 5-2 away win over Kindersley on Saturday night wasn’t even close to being similar.

North Stars head coach Nate Bedford said Friday’s game, where they beat the Klippers 5-2 for their 11th straight win of the season, was one of the most complete games the team had played this year.

Not so on Saturday.

“I think we went through little spurts where we weren’t committed to playing well defensively,” he said after the win. “We’re trying to change some things right now and make sure the guys understand that we need to play a little bit better defensively.”

The North Stars outshot the Klippers 36-25 on Saturday after walloping them 59-20 in shots the night before.

The trio of Ben Allen, Coby Downs and Layne Young played particularly well on Saturday.

Allen had a goal and an assist, Downs had two goals and an assist, and Young had two assists.

“I thought they played well yesterday and it kind of rolled over to today,” Bedford said of his top line.

With Young’s two assists, he passed the 100-point plateau for his career, netting his 100th and 101st points in his 81st career game.

“He’s probably the most skilled guy in our league and he’ll do whatever you ask,” Bedford said. “I think guys fed off that and he probably was top two or three in hits on our team [tonight] and here’s a guy that’s leading our team in scoring. I think when you have leadership like that, you’re going to be okay.”

Their power play was lacking, with an early goal from Troy Gerein but then nothing after for a 1-for-7 finish.

Battlefords even came away empty handed on a five-minute power play after Ivan Vilcauskas was given a major penalty for a blow to the head on North Stars defenceman Conor Jensen.

Jensen was forced to the leave the game and it’s currently not clear how bad the injury is.

 On the season, the North Stars power play has been hot and cold. Sometimes it explodes for three or four goals in a single game, while other times it struggles to generate good looks.

“I thought we were trying to be too cute,” Bedford said of his power play. “We have no problem getting out of our zone 5-on-5. We have no problem getting entries 5-on-5. For whatever reason, sometimes when we have the power play, I think we get a little bit too complacent and think it’s going to come easy.

“We’ve got to be a little bit more team oriented when it comes to our power play but I think it’s one of those things too, where you get so many power plays, one after another, and sometimes you kind of get into a little bit of a funk and I think we saw that tonight.”

Lost in all the power play struggles and rough stuff was North Stars goaltender Taryn Kotchorek, who was solid again, stopping 23 of 25 shots for his 10th win of the season.

He couldn’t be blamed for either of the Klippers goals – one was a crazy bounce shot that changed direction and crept into the top corner, while another was an impressive deflection from Branden Wagner in the dying seconds of a game that was already over.

Kotchorek’s 10 wins this season rank second in the league, his 2.08 goals-against-average is third and his .914 save percentage is seventh. He’s tied for first in shutouts with five others, including teammate Joel Gryzbowski.

“For the first five minutes he may have been fighting the puck a bit but he’s got the maturity of a 25-year-old. He calmed himself down and got right back into it,” Bedford said of Kotchorek’s performance. “Being a former goalie – not as good as these two – but being a former goalie, I know how difficult it can be. I thought he was great.”

The North Stars have a few days off before they face the Nipawin Hawks for the first time this season on Tuesday at home. The Hawks are first in the Sherwood Division at 11-5-2-0. They lost both their games this weekend – to Notre Dame and Yorkton – ending a five-game winning streak.

Puck drop on Tuesday is scheduled for 7:30 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