Santa Claus may or may not have been flying over the Battlefords over the weekend; he left some Christmas presents for some hockey players inside the North Battleford Civic Centre.
The Yorkton Harvest played there over the weekend, two games in two days. Things went their way one night and not so much the following night.
Mr. Claus left two points and some other stuff under the so-called tree on Sunday as the visiting Harvest were all over the Battlefords Stars in a game that saw just about everything on the game sheet look very much in their favour.
They scored nine goals. They had just under five minutes left in regulation time to score a season-high 10th goal, they had a 15-year-old record three goals, their power play efficiency was scary good, but most of all, they got the badly needed two points in the standings and likely a ton of confidence.
"We definitely controlled the play," says head coach Jeff Odgers a day after the 9-3 win.
He noted that had it not been for a few bad penalty calls against them, the margin of victory may have been even greater.
Odgers said afterwards it was a great game to watch, on all accounts.
In the second period alone, they outscored the Stars, 4-1. They outshot the Stars 45-29 and their power play conversion rate was exactly 50 per cent.
For every two power plays, they clicked once and they added a shorthanded goal.
"That was the key goal," suggested Odgers.
"That was the happiest I've been with the effort (all season long)."
On top of all of that, Yorkton managed the win without Jeffrey Ness and Yanni Mamais, and had three callups dress for the game.
"It was fun," Odgers responded, to watch his team take advantage of their scoring opportunities.
He added that it's "most rewarding" to see six goals go in off the sticks of 15-year-olds.
Among them, Jaden Kreklewich, did all of his damage in the middle period, scoring three of his team's four goals; two of which came on the power play.
"It's huge for his confidence," says Odgers. "It's awesome."
Yorkton opened the scoring at 13:32 of the first period when Lynnden Pastachak scored from Adam McCannell and Kailum Gervais.
The Battlefords Stars tied it up on a goal by Brody Tatchell.
The Yorkton special teams took over from there as Dakota Odgers restored the lead on a power play and Tanner Lesann tallied for the game's only shorthanded goal.
It came with 14 seconds left on the clock. Lesann, Gervais and Brayden Park all drew assists in the first period.
Kreklewich went to work in the second period, scoring his first of two at 14:14 from Brayden Kayter and Devin McGonigal.
He added his second at 8:50 on the power play and Odgers added his second before Kreklewich rounded out his hat trick to make it a 7-2 score heading into the third period.
Kihisis Derocher was the lone Star to get one past Spencer Bomboir.
McGonigal scored one himself to add to his three assists, at 18:44 of the third on a power play from Nicholas Pouliot and Korwin Shewchuk and Pouliot rounded out the scoring at 5:32 from Gervais and Pastachak.
The night before, the same two teams got together at the North Battleford Civic Centre, but it was the Stars who got the win, a 4-2 result.
Coach Odgers said the two games weren't that different in terms of intensity.
"It wasn't a whole lot different," he said via phone call.
"Their goaltender was outstanding on Saturday," he said of the Stars' Nigel Detbrenner, who went on to stop 42 off 44 shots he faced.
Odgers said the Stars scored twice on power plays and that was likely the difference in the final score.
In both games at the Civic Centre, Yorkton had over 40 shots.
Dakota Odgers and Blake McMillen scored for Yorkton. Park, Lesann and Josh Lees all had assists.
WEDNESDAY's TIE
Yorkton played Regina in their final home game of the month Wednesday night. It happened to be their first game resulting in a tie at 4-4.
"It was a character point," says Odgers, noting that Yorkton had to come from behind late in the third period to earn the single point.
"We came from behind twice."
Yorkton used to be one of four teams in the league who did not have a tie on their record.
Going into the game, Yorkton was sitting at 7-19 and playing a Pat Canadians team that was at 7-14.
Regina jumped out to a 3-1 lead through the opening 20 minutes on goals from Dylan Ostertag and Jared Martin, who had a pair. Both of Martin's efforts came on the power play.
Branden Kayter scored the lone Harvest goal, which had cut the Regina lead in half.
There was no scoring in the second period.
Within the first four minutes of the third period, Blake McMillen and Tanner Lesann tallied to bring the Harvest to even terms. Brayden Park and Josh Lees drew assists on McMillen's goal while Lesann scored unassisted. Both goals came at even strength.
Regina's Tyson Predinchuk scored to give the visitors another lead, however, Lesann's 11th goal of the season and 24th point of the year, tied the game for Yorkton and sent it into overtime.
