Some glaring mistakes and a bad five minutes were the difference when the Battlefords Stars hosted the Prince Albert Mintos Wednesday at the Civic Centre.
"We took five minutes off and it cost us," said Stars' assistant coach Derek Schmidt.
Trailing 2-1, the Stars allowed three goals in four minutes and put themselves in too deep of a hole to climb out of.
The Stars played a dominant third period scoring twice in 10 seconds, but were snake bitten and unable to capitalize on a game-tying goal despite a handful of prime chances in the third period.
The Stars trailed 2-0 after the first thanks to goals by Prince Albert's Jeremy Margeson and Brennen Bosovich, who scored on the powerplay.
The Stars cut the lead in half early into the second when Dylan Fluter sniped his third of the season from Ryne Keller and Cody Thiel.
After the Stars' goal they sat back and at 5:07, 8:04 and 9:07 Luc Lemire, Tad Kozun and Carter Danczak scored putting the Mintos up 5-1.
Five minutes later, the Stars turned up their play again and created a scramble around the Mintos' net. Eventually the puck was pushed across the line and Zachary Klebaum was credited with his first of the season from Robin Yew.
After two periods Prince Albert led 5-2.
Just over a minute into the third period, the Stars' Blake Young put his second of the season by Taran Kozun in the Prince Albert net. Klebaum and Dillon Forbes had the assists.
Off the ensuing faceoff, the Stars went down and Colby Cave scored his third of the season from Justin Lund and Garrett Zelinski to pull within a goal.
With plenty of time to tie the game the Stars went on the attack and put 11 shots on net, hit a post once and deflected a pass behind the Prince Albert goalie and through the crease, but they couldn't get that all important fifth goal.
The game ended with Prince Albert earning their ninth win of the season while the Stars fell to 4-9-1-0.
Regan Santoro was saddled with the loss after a solid performance in the Stars' net, making 29 saves.
"It's a cliché, but it is really tough to learn how to win," said Schmidt. "Right now we are trying to figure out how to win hockey games and it seems like with the better teams in the league we battle harder against, and then take the night off against some of the weaker ones. It is nothing we have the answer for right now, but we need to find the answer quickly."
The Stars now prepare for two games, Saturday and Sunday in Swift Current against the 3-8-0-1 Legionnaires. If the Stars were to sweep the weekend series they could jump from 10th in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League standings to eighth.
"We have got to start in Swift Current like we finished here," says Schmidt. "We came out in the third and we were flying for the whole 20 minutes and we outshot them."
