The Battlefords North Stars worked hard from the drop of the puck to the closing horn in their 4-2 win over the CanElson Drilling Estevan Bruins at Affinity Place on Saturday.
Bruins right winger Owen LaClare said unlike that 60-minute effort from the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's (SJHL) top team, the home side took a while to get going in the game. He said once they realized they had to get moving they were down 2-1 with 20 minutes left to play making it difficult to get back into the game.
“Our game plan going into tonight was to get pucks deep and the first couple periods we weren't aware of that,” said LaClare. “They were clogging up the neutral zone (and) we couldn't skate it through. The third period rolled around (and) we started dumping things in and it started working a little better for us.”
Chris Lewgood, head coach and general manager of the Bruins, said they turned over the puck at the offensive blue line on too many occasions against the North Stars. He said they are best suited for a low game and wanted to play against the Battlefords defencemen instead of their forwards, but they didn't execute that and the attention to detail in the game plan wasn't there.
Battlefords “paid close attention to detail,” said Lewgood. “They were real disciplined in their schematics and I thought we were too loose on that and there were lots of opportunities against that came from that and a lack of opportunities for.”
Despite being outshot 11-7 in the first period, Estevan exited the frame up 1-0 on Brayden Oleksyn's 13th goal of the season to keep his six-game scoring streak intact. After Reed Delainey evened up the game 3:14 into the second, the Bruins took three minor penalties within a minute of each other close to midway through the second period leading to the go-ahead goal by North Stars left winger Dustin Gorgi.
Lewgood said generally speaking their second periods have not been good and the game against the North Stars was no different. He said on top of that they have to stay the course, so if the opposition scores two goals to take the lead they have to find a way to get the next one.
“We weren't able to do that,” he said. “Give credit to Battlefords. They are a really good hockey team and to get behind on them it is pretty hard to come back. We made it close, but just didn't quite get there.”
The Battlefords' Coby Downs and Estevan's Keegan Allison traded goals in the final frame before the North Stars' Layne Young scored an empty-netter with 23 seconds remaining to put the game away. With the win the Battlefords North Stars improve to a league best 18-5-0-2 record. The Bruins sit at 12-9-0-1 for second place in the Viterra Division and fifth in the SJHL.
