Kenneth Brown
of The Clarion
The Iron Horse Kindersley Klippers are struggling to win on the road and they will look to right the ship over back-to-back road games starting tonight in Wilcox.
On Tuesday morning, the Klippers had the second worst record over their past 10 games among teams in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. The Klippers are 3-5-1-1 over their past 10 games. Only the last place La Ronge Ice Wolves were worse at 0-10-0-0 over 10 games.
Kindersley’s past 10 games have included five home games and five road games, but the team has only managed to pick up one point in the five road games. The Klippers are 0-4-0-1 on the road and 3-1-1-0 at home over that span.
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The Klippers only played one game in the past seven days, and it was an away game on Nov. 24 versus rival Battlefords North Stars. Kindersley lost by a score of 4-2 after being up 2-1 after 20 minutes, so the team’s struggles continued away from the confines of the West Central Events Centre (WCEC).
Special teams played a role in the loss. There were 15 power plays in the game, but the North Stars had nine of them and they scored three times during those nine power plays. Both of Kindersley’s goals were scored on the power play.
Defenceman Blake Kleiner had a good start to his first game back in the line up after missing time due to an injury. Kleiner scored the first goal and he added an assist on the team’s second goal scored by Austin Nault.
The scoring dried up for the Klippers, and Battlefords lit the lamp twice in the second period and added an insurance goal early in the third period. Justen Close stopped 32 out of 36 shots in the game. Caden Benson and Ty Enns picked up an assist each in the losing cause.
Enns, who was just acquired for a player development fee from the Bonnyville Pontiacs of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, has four points in his first two games with the Klippers. He also has 18 minutes in penalties in those games.
According to hockeydb.com, Enns has played 192 regular season games for six teams since his junior hockey career began in 2015. Enns, a forward, has amassed 178 points (82G, 96A) over his 192 games. He also has 390 minutes in penalties for an average of about two minutes a game.
When asked about Enns, coach Clayton Jardine said the team’s newest member plays with a lot of intensity and he was acquired for that reason. He noted that it is his job to teach Enns the best time and place to show his intensity.
He said the team gets into penalty trouble about once in every six games, so the discipline needs to be more consistent. The team is taking bad penalties, but a lack of discipline was not the only problem on Saturday, the coach said.
“It was a disappointing effort altogether,” he said of the result, recognizing that no one played to the best of his capabilities and a silver lining is the team played its worst game this season and only lost by two goals. “It’s still disappointing when you play against your rival and you don’t show up.”
The team has been dealing with injuries to key players, so the slow week was good on the injury front. Kleiner and Noah Turanski returned to the lineup after sitting out with injuries and Jardine said it was nice to have two veterans back on the ice.
Five of the team’s next six games are on the road and four of those games are against divisional opponents. The team’s next three games are all divisional match ups and the team plays the Notre Dame Hounds three times in eight days.
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