Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
The Iron Horse Kindersley Klippers will look to rebound tonight in Melfort after a tough three-game road trip with three losses in three consecutive nights.
The Klippers only managed to pick up one of six possible Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League points on the road trip with two losses in regulation time and one loss in a shootout. The team only scored three goals in the three games, but the team only gave up six goals at the same time.
It is almost unheard of for a team to play games on three consecutive nights, but it was the scenario for the Klippers. The team lost 2-1 to the Notre Dame Hounds in Wilcox on Nov. 1, lost 2-0 to the Weyburn Red Wings on Nov. 2, and then lost 3-2 in a shootout to the Estevan Bruins on Nov. 3.
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On the plus side, rookie defenceman Connor Karo picked up his first goal as a Klipper against the Hounds, and Kyle Bosch picked up an assist on the goal for his team-leading 14th point of the season. Caden Benson and Brendon Borbely scored the team’s goals in Estevan.
Despite the three losses, there is another positive the team could take from the first couple of games on the road trip. The Klippers continue to rack up more shots than most of their opponents, so the team is getting its chances.
The Klippers had 43 shots compared to only 19 shots for the Hounds, and the team tallied 34 shots compared to only 22 shots for the Red Wings. The scenario was flipped on the Klippers against the Bruins when the home team had 40 shots and the Klippers ended with 28 shots.
Austin Nault scored the only goal of the shootout for Kindersley in the loss to Estevan. The shootout was a lengthy affair and it took 11 rounds to determine the winner. The team also struggled on the power play in the first two games of the trip.
The Klippers went 0-for-6 in Wilcox and 0-for-4 in Weyburn on the power play, but both of the team’s goals in Estevan were on the power play and the team went 2-for-6 overall. The team did not allow a power play goal against in 13 opportunities, so the team’s penalty killing had success.
With a record of 12-5-1-1, the Klippers sit in second place in the Global Ag Risk Solutions division with 26 points. The team sits only two points behind the division leading Humboldt Broncos with two games in hand.
There was more positive news for the team when the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League announced its Players of the Month for the combined September-October span. Justen Close was named the Sasktel SJHL goalie of the month. Close posted a record of 9-2-1 in the first six weeks of the season with a 1.96 goals-against-average and .930 save percentage.
Head Coach Clayton Jardine agreed it was a tough three games on the road, but there were still positive signs in the greater scheme of things. He noted that the team battled hard, but goals were hard to come by. Still, he said the team is playing hard.
“We’re still playing the way that we want to play,” he said. “We’re still generating the goal-scoring opportunities, so it’s really tough to come down hard on the guys because they’re still (buying) into the system and they’re still getting the opportunities, and you know that soon enough, the goals are going to come.”
Jardine said the opposition got good goaltending in the first two games, but the Klippers were also snake bit at times. The team accumulated more than 80 shots in the first two games, had several good scoring chances and missed several open-net chances overall, according to the coach.
He noted that the game in Estevan was different than the first two games on the trip, but it was a rough game and the team lost three players over the course of the game for different reasons. Josh Fletcher was ejected in the first period, Karo was ejected for fighting in the second period and Blake Kleiner, the team’s top scoring defenceman, went down to an injury during the Estevan game.
The coach said the team played short and with only four defencemen, so it is a testament to the team’s drive and determination. He recognized that the message to the players is to keep playing hard and stick to the system.
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