North Stars grab championship series opener

The Soo North Stars took advantage of the weary North Bay Trappers to grab an early series lead.

Facing a Trappers team that has played a lot of hockey in the past week, the North Stars used their speed and tenacious forechecking to score a 6-1 win on Friday night at the John Rhodes Community Centre.

The victory gives the Soo a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five Great North Midget League championship series.

Game two goes on Saturday at Memorial Gardens beginning at 3 p.m.

The Trappers enter the series after a gruelling 3-1 semi-final series win over Kirkland Lake. In the series' third game on Monday, the Trappers lost in overtime before skating to the series clinching victory on Tuesday in triple overtime.

Meanwhile, the North Stars have been off since Sunday when they easily dumped the Timmins Majors in three straight games.

"We didn't give them any time or space and we were on them right away," said North Stars head coach Mike Hall. "We've learned from our mistakes all year and in the first series we dropped the first one and we learned from that and came out hard tonight."

Tyler Gendron opened the scoring at the 8:00 mark before collecting a rebound off the end boards and beating Trappers goaltender Mark Laperriere with 1:11 remaining in the first period.

The North Stars increased their lead to 3-0 early in the second period when call-up Matt Naccarato banged in a rebound.

Lance McMahon put the Trappers on the board midway through the frame when he snagged a turnover at the North Stars blueline and beat goaltender Travis O'Brien with a nifty move.

Paul Dupont scored a power play goal for the North Stars to close the second period with a 4-1 lead.

Brad DiCandia and Nick Minardi added third period goals for the locals. Jason Bird recorded three assists and Dupont chipped in two while Minardi set up another.

"I thought our penalty kill was pretty solid," said Hall. "We gave up a couple of five-on-three situations and we didn't give up too many shots.

"It's a huge game tomorrow. We don't want to go to the Bay with a split. If we lose tomorrow then tonight's game means nothing."

The North Stars used the services of Naccarato and defenseman Kevin Mills, who were called up from the Northside Toyota AA Midgets. Zack McNally remains out of the lineup with a knee injury while Nic Lang returned to the lineup but was used sparingly.

The Trappers are also feeling a roster crunch with four regulars out of the lineup and three affiliate players in their place.

"We're a pretty tired club," said Trappers head coach and former NHLer Larry Keenan. "We played four games in five nights against Kirkland Lake plus the travel. We weren't in the game from the word go and we didn't have any jump.

"I expect us to come out tomorrow and play a much better game. I will be very disappointed if we don't come to play. This wasn't indicative of our team."

The series will shift to North Bay next weekend with game three scheduled for Saturday night and game four, if necessary, on Sunday afternoon. A fifth game would be played on Tuesday, Mar. 22 in the Sault.

The eventual GNML champion will advance to the regional playdowns being held Mar. 28-Apr. 3 in North York with the winner from there advancing to the national championships.