Taryn Kotchorek isn’t one to look at statistics.
However, the Battlefords North Stars netminder has now matched his shutout total from last season, as he made 23 saves for his fourth shutout of the 2016-17 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season in a 3-0 win over the Melfort Mustangs at the Civic Centre.
“I felt pretty solid most of the night and the guys helped to make things easy for me,” Kotchorek said.
“They were blocking lots of shots and they kept many of their shots to the outside, which allowed me to make some fairly easy saves.”
The North Stars also got two goals in the first period to help out their netminder.
Ryan Rosenberg unleashed a powerful point shot past Mustangs goaltender Evan Plotnik six minutes into the game, while Keaton Holinaty converted a great feed from McGregor Sinclair shortly afterwards.
After that though, North Stars head coach and general manager Nate Bedford was left wanting more from his side.
“I felt like we went through the motions a little bit,” Bedford said. “It wasn’t our best game, and if you play like that on a regular basis, you’ll end up losing to the really good teams.
“The first six minutes were painful, but we turned things around after that for the rest of the period. As things went along though, we took a lot of stupid penalties and that took us out of the flow of the game. With the skillset that we have, that slows us down.”
Owen Lamb rounded out the scoring for the North Stars with an empty-net goal with just five seconds to to go.
The Mustangs, who have lost their last seven games and are eight points ahead of the Melville Millionaires for the 10th and final playoff spot in the league, were unable to capitalize on their power plays Friday as they went 0-for-8 on the man advantage.
Plotnik was stellar in goal for the visitors as he made 32 saves in the defeat.
Next up for the North Stars, who have won four straight games, is a huge matchup with the red-hot Nipawin Hawks Saturday at the Civic Centre.
The Hawks, who beat the North Stars 2-0 in Nipawin on Jan. 29, have won their last 13 games and are just four points behind the Flin Flon Bombers for second in the league standings.
