By Nathan Kanter

3 power play goals lead Bruins to game 1 win over North Stars

Mar 30, 2018 | 11:45 PM

The Estevan Bruins came into the Civic Centre on Friday night and stole game one from the Battlefords North Stars.

Three power play goals for the visitors, plus a two-goal performance from Arthur Miller, helped pave the way for their 1-0 lead in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League semifinals.

Estevan appeared to be the better team in the series opening 5-3 win.

“We just weren’t ourselves,” North Stars head coach Brandon Heck said after the loss, the team’s first post-season defeat since being bounced from the playoffs on April 9, 2016 to Flin Flon. “I don’t know where our lack of confidence came from with the puck. I’ve never seen us get wrist shots blocked. We didn’t have it tonight, with handling the puck clean and confident.”

The North Stars outshot Estevan 35-22, but Bruins netminder Bo Didur continued his strong play from the quarter-finals, making 32 saves for his fifth straight post-season win.

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Coach Heck also felt his team left goaltender Joel Grzybowski out to dry a little too often.

“We turned too many pucks over,” he said. “Gave up too many odd-man rushes and they got a few more saves.”

The Bruins struck first on Friday, getting a power play goal from their leading scorer, Zach Goberis, six seconds into their first man advantage of the game.

But Levi Kleiboer tied the game at one on a North Stars 5-on-3 advantage, his first marker of the post-season.

Former Battlefords AAA Star Kaelan Holt put Estevan up 2-1 with another power play goal early in the second, before Miller extended the lead to 3-1 less than two minutes later.

MacGregor Sinclair’s fourth of the playoffs got the North Stars to within one on a juicy rebound before the second period was out, but Bruins captain Jake Fletcher made it a 4-2 game 6:55 into the final period right off of a faceoff. Miller’s second of the contest would put the game out of reach under four minutes later.

Brad Girard had the third North Stars goal, but it wasn’t enough as the homeside fell 5-3.

While the Bruins power play went 3-for-7, the North Stars struggled yet again, going 1-for-7. Battlefords’ power play is now just 2-for-23 in the first five games of the playoffs.

“A lot of it is just execution,” Heck said. “We gave them the puck or couldn’t complete a pass or had a wrist shot blocked from the point. We didn’t have our normal swagger tonight.”

The teams meet again at the Civic Centre on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. NorSask North Stars hockey gets underway on CJNB/CJNS at 7 p.m. with the Ultra Print pre-game show.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11