In the final game before the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's trade deadline, the Battlefords North Stars extended their winning streak to four games and continued to climb the Bauer Conference standings.
The North Stars hosted the Melville Millionaires Friday at the Civic Centre and after receiving a spark from goalie Kyle Birch early, the North Stars' offence rolled from there.
Birch made a cross-crease pad save and, seconds later, a glove save, while the North Stars' were facing a four-on-three situation. Following the saves, Kyle Hall kickstarted the offence. He pounced on a loose puck and put his 16th of the season by Zach Rakochy. Line mates Keith Grondin and Colin Phaneuf had the helpers on the game's first goal.
Two minutes later, it was Mitch Galbraith picking up the loose puck and plotting his third of the season as Rakochy was tied up with a Melville defenceman and North Stars Travis Cech. Galbraith's goal was assisted by Tony Oak and Cech.
After a bit of a sloppy first period, the North Stars played their best 20 minutes in the second and took complete control of the game.
The North Stars scored four times, the first coming on the powerplay when Samuel Fortier fired a rebound home. Fortier's eighth of the season was assisted by Hall and Brody Luhning. Five minutes later, and just after another powerplay expired, the North Stars' new-look powerplay unit scored to go up 4-0. Cody Folstad blasted a point shot through traffic that hit Rakochy's glove and fell into the net. Folstad's seventh of the season was assisted by Grondin and Phaneuf and chased Rakochy from the game.
Former North Star, Alex Sirard, didn't fare much better, as, on another powerplay, Tanner Schwab had an easy tap in on the doorstep for his 10th of the season. Hall and Fortier had the assists.
The North Stars added one more nearly a minute later, as Cris Neurauter scored off the rush from Cech and Galbraith for his sixth of the season.
The North Stars outshot Melville 23-7 in the second period and led 6-0.
In the third, the North Stars eased up on gas pedal and Melville made it somewhat interesting with four goals, as Jordan Paddock, Justin Hollinger, Connor Lowe-Wylde and Godric Tham scored for the Millionaires.
Hall scored his second of the game for the North Stars in the second, as Grondin and Phaneuf added their third assists and the final scored was 7-4.
Also in the third, a minor line brawl broke out after Woody Klassen nailed a Millionaires player on an obvious interference penalty. Fortunately only one player from each team received a fighting major, meaning there should be no suspensions resulting from the incident.
The North Stars finished 2/4 on the powerplay and looked great on all four opportunities in the first game with the two new units.
Melville were 1/4 with the man advantage.
Birch earned back-to-back wins in January and now has 11 on the season after making 34 saves. Radocky made 21 saves while Sirard stopped 19 in the Melville net.
Following the game everyone in the North Stars' dressing room agreed it wasn't the way they wanted to finish the game - being up six goals heading into the third. But with three days between games they would take the win and welcome the short break.
"I am disappointed with the way we finished," said North Stars' head coach and general manager Ken Pearson. "I thought we started out slow, but we still did some good things. In the second period we did some things really good, and in the third period we let our foot off the gas and made some really poor decisions with the puck."
Nonetheless, the North Stars earned their fourth straight win and in their two home games against Melville the North Stars have outscored the Millionaires 14-7.
"It is disappointing, but we will take the two points," said Pearson. "It's a learning experience here, but we're on a bit of a roll though now."
The North Stars held the fourth spot, one point back of Humboldt and two ahead of Flin Flon, in the Bauer Conference with a 19-20-1-1 record heading into their Tuesday night game with the defending champions La Ronge Ice Wolves. The Ice Wolves, who lead the Bauer Conference with a 27-11-0-2 record, are 3-2-0-0 against the North Stars this season.
