The Battlefords Stars started their 2011 portion of the season under the watchful eye of Greg Schmidt in Regina Saturday and Sunday.
Schmidt said one of his major goals would be to drop the team's goals against down and in his first game behind the bench the Stars did that. Unfortunately they never produced any goals and lost 3-0.
Just over a minute into the first frame, Graham Black beat Regan Santoro making it 1-0.
The score stayed that way until early in the third period when Black struck again, this time on the powerplay.
Spencer Crow scored the third Regina goal and it was goalie Andy Desautels earning the Pat Canadians' game star honours with a 19-save shutout. Santoro made 36 saves in the loss for the Stars.
Dillon Forbes was named the Stars' game star, while his team was 0/3 on the powerplay, but killed six of seven penalties.
Sunday, Dylan Fluter got the offence started for the Stars with his 10th of the season from Ryan Suchorab.
The teams split goals in the second, as Tim McGauley scored on the powerplay for Regina and Blake Young put the Stars back in front 2-1 with less than six minutes remaining in the second. Garrett Zelinski assisted on Young's ninth of the season.
A bad penalty by the Stars at the beginning of the third gave Regina the opening they needed and they scored two goals in the first minute of the third. Black and Carter Struthers set the tone for the remainder of the period and the Pat Canadians scored five unanswered goals cruising to a 6-2 win.
Tyson Predinchuk scored twice and Allen Kilback added one to cap off the Regina scoring.
Blair Mahon was busy making 44 saves in the loss, as the Stars were outshot 50-19. Suchorab was named the Stars' game star.
Regina was 2/7 on the powerplay while the Stars were 0/6. The four game season series ends with Regina winning three of four against the Stars and out scoring them 18-8.
The reaction from some players following the weekend was they felt they easily could have one at least one game on the road trip, but between a hot goalie in the Regina net and some bad breaks, that wasn't the case.
The next test for Schmidt and the Stars will be Thursday when they begin a stretch of five straight home games. The Stars will host the Beardy's Blackhawks and Saturday and Sunday the Tisdale Trojans will be in North Battleford.
In a trade deadline note surrounding the Stars, although there aren't trades in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League, one Star player was traded Monday. Colby Cave, who was a first round draft pick of the Kootenay Ice in 2009 was part of a trade that moved Cody Eakin to Kootenay from Swift Current. Eakin played with the Canadian World Junior Team and for his services the Ice traded Christian Magnus, the WHL rights to listed players Cave, Ryan Bloom, Jarett Zentner and Steven Myland, the first and second round draft picks in the 2011 draft and the third round pick in the 2012 draft.
