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North Stars wallop Team USA

September 23, 2006 - North American Hockey League (NAHL)
Traverse City North Stars News Release


TRAVERSE CITY - Stefan Shively hopes he'll help engineer bigger wins than Saturday's 5-1 trouncing of the U.S. National Team Development Program's Under-17 club at Centre ICE arena. It just hasn't happened yet.

"It's the regular season and it's still early, but this is the biggest win of my career so far," said Shively, a Clevelander who made 19 saves on 20 shots for his first junior victory. "But it isn't about personal stats, it's about the win, and these guys played one heck of a game in front of me."

The North Stars, now 3-2-1 after effecting a split with Team USA - and dealing the program its first loss of 2006-07 - opened up leads of 2-0 and 3-1 through two periods before closing out the first home win of the year with a pair of unrequited markers in the final stanza. Aaron Pietila had a hand in four of the five tallies for TC, scoring a pair of goals and assisting on two others.

"That line of (Nate) Urbaniak, Pietila, and (Kory) Kaunisto just had the will to score tonight, no question," Stars head coach Scott Gardiner said. "I mean, we played well across the board, but that line was just on fire."

Urbaniak (Pietila, Zach Hitch) collected his first goal in a Stars sweater with 4:05 to play in the first period, and Kaunisto duplicated that effort 6:19 into the second. Pietila and Travis Hamway drew assists on the goal, which was the last even-strength score of the evening.

Grant Scott pulled Team USA to within a goal at the 12:34 point of the middle period - as Stars forward Jared Mullen was sprawled on the ice with an injured leg - but that was all the offense that Shively and the Traverse City defense would permit.

"Stefan was solid, stopping everything he was supposed to, and the guys kept a lot of shots off him, too," Gardiner added. "It's a big win for him, and it's great for us to have two goaltenders who are playing near the top of their respective games."

Pietila scored a pair of power play goals - one to close the second and another to open the third period - and Mullen returned to the game to close out the scoring with his third goal in the two-game series, also a power play effort, to make it a four-goal spread.

While the whistle-happy NAHL officials still called a bevy of infractions - the teams combined for 25 minor penalties on Saturday and 55 of them on the weekend, the North Stars special teams were more than up to the task. TC is now third in the NAHL with a 91.9 percent penalty kill, and fourth in power play effectiveness with a 19 percent success rate.

"There were still a lot of penalties, but there weren't so many of the ticky-tack calls - there was more of a flow to tonight's game," Gardiner assessed. "And our special teams have played so well through it all. That's big, given the current climate in the North American league."

With their win and Marquette's loss, the North Stars moved into second place in the NAHL North Division, five points behind Team USA (6-1-0). Traverse City will visit Alpena next Friday before returning to Centre ICE arena for the back end of a home-and-home with the IceDiggers on Saturday at 7:05 p.m.



North American Hockey League Stories from September 23, 2006


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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