Mustangs shut out Stars, go for Western sweep in Kindersley

Oct 10, 2026 | 3:35 PM

The Melfort Mustangs picked up a 2-0 victory in North Battleford Friday night, courtesy of a 32-save shutout by Nick Kotai.

For Kotai, it was his first career SJHL shutout, as he put up a very impressive performance in the building his older brother Josh used to call home.

“Obviously, he was great. I thought we did a pretty good job playing in front of him, but any time that they got behind us, he was always right there. It just gave us a ton of confidence knowing that he was behind us the whole night,” explained Mustangs assistant coach Clarke Huxley.

“They came at us pretty good to start the first period, but after that, I thought we settled down quite nicely. We had an excellent second period, and that carried over into the third. Once we got up, we did a really nice job locking things down; they didn’t get many grade-A chances in our zone, and I thought we played a solid 60 minutes of hockey.”

It was a very tightly contested battle as neither side was able to find the back of the net in the opening 40 minutes.

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Mustangs shut out Stars, go for Western sweep in Kindersley

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Luke MacKenzie then opened the scoring in the opening minutes of the final frame, placing a perfect shot glove high on Stars netminder Nathan Claydon. Matthew Bertolin later added an empty-netter to seal it for the Melfort.

Up next for the Stangs is a trip to Kindersley to take on the Klippers, as they wrap up their Western swing. It will be the first meeting of the season between the two clubs.

“We know we have to play full six periods of hockey this weekend, and that’s the same message any weekend, really. We’ve enjoyed our win, and now we’ve reset our mindset and have gotten ready for Kindersley,” Huxley added.

“They’re a good team, they’re well coached, they’re well structured, they’ve got some big guys, and they’re pretty physical. On the other side of things, they got a lot of guys that can score, and we’re gonna have to be ready for the test. They can play any style that they want to, so we’re gonna have to go in there and try to grease out another road win.”

Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., with the pregame show going at 7:15 p.m. on 105CJVR and CJVR.com.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

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by Ben Tompkins

Mustangs shut out Stars, go for Western sweep in Kindersley

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