Diggers down Stars again

Published on December 6, 2009 under North American Hockey League (NAHL)
Traverse City North Stars News Release


TRAVERSE CITY - After a 21-hour respite, Alpena goalie Marco Wieser picked up right where he left off.

Wieser, who stopped 28 shots in a 3-0 win over Traverse City on Friday in Alpena, repeated the feat on Saturday night at Centre ICE arena, corralling all 27 shots he faced in a 2-0 victory over the North Stars. John Fritsche registered both goals for the IceDiggers, who swept the weekend series and has won four of five versus the Stars.

"He (Wieser) got us all weekend," said Traverse City head coach/GM Anthony Palumbo. "He made plenty of good saves, but I wish I could say we were driving the net on him and were peppering him with good shots. I thought we played well - probably our best game in the last six or so - but it's hard to win when you can't score."

Palumbo also bemoaned the Stars' lack of power play proficiency; TC went 0-for-5 on Saturday, 0-for-2 on Friday, and has just one man- advantage marker in the past 27 chances.

"At this point, the power play seems to be a momentum-killer for us," he quipped. "If there were a way to decline a power play, we'd have to consider it."

While Traverse City is 12th in the 19-team NAHL in terms of power play percentage (15.00%), the Stars are 19th in terms of killing penalties at 78.62%. However, the hosts rebuffed all six Alpena power plays, including a protracted 5-on-3 early in the second period.

Fritsche, who has gorged on the North Stars for seven goals in the last five games, was hauled down en route to a breakaway at 14:09 of the middle stanza, and converted the subsequent penalty shot. He added an empty-netter in the final minute to make it a two-goal final margin.

Drew Strandberg (Thunder Bay, ONT/Thunder Bay SIJHL) played Wieser to a near-draw on Saturday, collecting 21 of 22 shots while whittling his goals-against average to 2.42.

The Stars' first Teddy Bear Toss intermission event brought in nearly 100 bears which the team will distribute to pediatric patients, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Northwest Michigan, and Child & Family Services.

The North Stars fell to 15-8-1, and are just a point ahead of second- place Janesville after the Jets' 2-1 win at Motor City on Saturday. Idle Marquette is just three back of the first-place Stars. Traverse City heads to Marquette next weekend for a three-game series at Lakeview Arena starting on Thursday.

"There's the Marquette series, then we're at Janesville for two, so this is a pretty big stretch for us," Palumbo added. "It won't be easy, so hopefully we got some tough losses out of our system here this last week or so."

Traverse City will return to Centre ICE for a pair of weekday matinees on Monday, Dec. 28 and Tuesday, Dec. 29 when Marquette visits.

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North American Hockey League Stories from December 6, 2009


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