With five games completed in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League regular season, Battlefords AAA Stars head coach Jean Fauchon has a good read on what his team needs to work on.
At the moment, the most pressing item is actually seeing a strong effort from his squad from the opening face-off until the final buzzer.
“We’re not competing for a full 60 minutes,” Fauchon said. “That’s something we’ve been stressing here over the last couple of weeks, and even in practice it shows.
“We need to pick up the intensity out there. We’re showing flashes, but then we give up, and you can’t do that in this league or the other team will make you pay.”
The Stars dropped to 1-3-0-1 for the season over the weekend after a pair of losses to the Moose Jaw Generals at the North Battleford Civic Centre.
The Generals prevailed in a 1-0 shootout affair Saturday and completed the weekend sweep with a 5-2 result Sunday.
Penalties played a key role in the results for the Stars as they were on the penalty kill on nine occasions in both games.
“That’s a result of not working hard out there,” Fauchon said. “When you let up and find yourself in a bad position, that’s when you take bad hooking or slashing penalties.
“That comes from not taking that extra stride and we’ve been telling them that over the last few weeks in practice.”
One of the few positives from the weekend was the stellar play of the Stars’ netminders.
Lance Alm made 41 saves in 65 minutes of action Saturday while Joseph Young turned aside 45 shots Sunday.
“We’ve been lucky to have both guys playing well, but we can’t allow as many shots as we have been,” Fauchon said.
“There are days where the best goalies aren’t going to be on their game, and we have to be ready to help our netminders out. We haven’t done that yet.”
The Stars had a chance to steal the win in overtime Saturday, but Luke Reid’s breakaway attempt was turned aside by a great glove save from Generals netminder Matt Lenz.
It took until the fifth round of the shootout for someone to find the net, as Portland Winterhawks prospect Reece Newkirk solved Alm to give the Generals the victory.
The visitors were able to take control of things much earlier a day later, as they scored two goals in the first period and outshot the Stars by a 21-3 margin.
Jeremy Bisson led the way with a goal and an assist, while Evan Thomas, Nolan Jones, Tanner Manz and Newkirk also scored for the Generals, who are second in the SMAAAHL standings with a 5-2-0-0 mark.
“You’re always happy to get four points on the road during a weekend, but we still aren’t where we want to be yet,” Generals head coach Ray Wareham said.
“We always seem like we want to force things. We’re going three or four bodies instead of trying to make the simple outlet pass. We were able to get away with that this weekend, but that won’t happen against the strong teams in this league.”
Dylan Esau and Matthew Flodell both scored their first ever Midget AAA goals for the Stars in Sunday’s defeat.
Following a trip to Saskatoon Wednesday for a contest with the Blazers, the Stars will return to the Civic Centre this weekend for a pair of games with the Tisdale Trojans.
Both games will begin at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
The Stars will be without one of their key players this week, as Reid will be representing Saskatchewan at the Western Canada U16 Challenge Cup tournament in Calgary.
