(Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Canalta Cup Final

Mustangs stymied in third as North Stars take game 3

Apr 17, 2019 | 10:18 AM

They say you’re not in trouble in the playoffs until you lose at home. Both teams have now done that in the Canalta Cup Final in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL).

In game three of the best-of-seven series, the Battlefords North Stars came into Melfort and grabbed a 4-2 win over the Melfort Mustangs to take a 2-1 series lead.

For just the fourth time in the playoffs, the Mustangs scored first, this one came from Tyson Meyers as the local product scored his second goal of the series on a Justin Ball rebound. That lead lasted for about nine minutes until Austin Becker scored on a nice back door play to make it 1-1. That’s how things sat after 20 minutes, but the North Stars had a massive 19-8 edge on the shot clock.

In the second period, the North Stars came out hard and seemed to get the Mustangs back on their heels. That pressure led to a Reagan Doig goal in front of the net, making it 2-1 for Battlefords. Then, with 7:49 left in the period, Quintin Loon-Stewardson collided with Mustang netminder Shawn Parkinson, causing Parkinson to leave the game but also leading to a Melfort powerplay. Noah Giesbrecht took over in the Mustang net. On that powerplay, Justin Ball ripped a shot past Joel Grzybowski for the first powerplay marker for either team in the series to make it 2-2. Things stayed that way until 15 seconds remained in the period when Braydon Buziak came into the zone, used the defender as a screen and beat Giesbrecht under the pad, making it 3-2 Stars after two. Assistant Coach for the Mustangs Dan Meyers said even though that ended up being the game-winning-goal, that’s not where things turned for Melfort.

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“I’m going to say it was maybe a couple hits actually,” Meyers told northeastNOW. “It just seems like when one of our guys get hit hard or something like that, we kind of just back off and take a safety zone for a bit until we can get back to being physical. I think it was the physicality actually.”

Melfort battled extremely hard in the third period, firing everything and the kitchen sink at the North Stars. The biggest turning point in the period though seemed to happen with about 13 minutes to play when Colin Schmidt was robbed on a sure back door play by Joel Grzybowski (see below).

Shortly after, the North Stars broke out of the zone, and Quintin Loon-Stewardson made a nice play in front of the net to beat Giesbrecht, and giving Battlefords a 4-2 lead. Colin Schmidt had another great chance late, so did Zack Smith, so did Tanner Zentner, but none of them could beat Grzybowski who stopped 11 shots in the third period, and 28 overall. Dan Meyers said Grzybowski really stole the show for the North Stars.

“I don’t know, we probably had five good chances there in the third,” Meyers said. “We should have had one or two that usually go in, but they didn’t go in. I don’t know if we worked the full 60 minutes tonight, and that’s probably our biggest thing, but it is what it is.”

Game four of the series takes place on Wednesday, April 16 back in Melfort at the Northern Lights Palace.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6