Heading into their first meeting of the season with the Nipawin Hawks, Battlefords North Stars head coach and general manager Brandon Heck felt like Tuesday’s meeting at the Civic Centre would give a good indicator of where the team stood.
In the end, it was the top team in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League that had the final say, as Brandan Arnold scored 58 seconds into overtime to give the Hawks a 3-2 win.
“I would have liked to have seen a little bit more desperation from our guys in the third period,” North Stars assistant coach Boyd Wakelin said. “It felt like we were just trying to hold on at times, especially compared to the second period when we were able to get pucks on net and beat them in the one-on-one battles to get the rebounds.
“Nipawin’s a good team and I guess it’s a positive that we were able to get a point out of this one, but I feel like we let one slip away in overtime.”
After hemming the North Stars in their own end for the final few minutes of regulation, the Hawks broke the deadlock early in the extra frame on a play that started when Arnold swiped the puck away from Troy Gerein.
“They had a little bit of a sloppy rim-around attempt from behind their net, and I saw that their defenceman didn’t quite have his head up so I was able to pick the puck off of him,” Arnold said.
“I passed it over to Logan [Casavant] in the slot and he made a great fake before making a back-door pass over to me. It was a beautiful play.”
Jake Tremblay and Grant Baetsen had the other goals for the 23-5-2-2 Hawks, who have won their last five games and hold a four-point gap over the North Stars for first place in the SJHL standings following a 4-3 victory Wednesday night over the Kindersley Klippers.
“Battlefords is a really nice team with a lot of dangerous players,” Hawks head coach and general manager Doug Johnson said. “You really have to respect them and make sure that they don’t numbers coming the other way.
“As a whole, I’m really happy with how things went. We played well in the defensive zone, put a lot of pressure on them with our offence and many of our guys left everything they had out on the ice.”
Rookie netminder Jake Anthony, who leads the league with a 1.97 goals against average and a .926 save percentage, turned aside 28 shots.
The North Stars, who saw their three-game winning streak come to an end and their record drop to 22-5-2-0 in the process, received a 34-save performance from Taryn Kotchorek and got their goals from Keith Anderson and Layne Young.
They’ll look to return to the win column Friday night against the Melfort Mustangs at the Civic Centre at 7:30 p.m., with their last game before Christmas taking place on home ice a night later against the Flin Flon Bombers.
Meanwhile, North Stars defenceman Levi Kleiboer has advanced to the semifinals with Canada West at the World Junior A Challenge in Truro, N.S.
In what was a dramatic quarter-final contest Wednesday evening against Canada East, Trail Smoke Eaters forward Ross Armour scored the game-tying goal in the third period and found the back of the net just 42 seconds into overtime to give Canada West a 4-3 win and a date with the Czech Republic.
That semifinal contest will take place Thursday evening, with the winner playing either Russia or the United States in Saturday’s final.
Kleiboer has suited up for all three games for Canada West but has yet to record a point.
