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Stars clinch home ice with 10-3 win

March 26, 2010 - North American Hockey League (NAHL)
Traverse City North Stars News Release


TRAVERSE CITY - The Traverse City North Stars set a team record with a 10-goal deluge on Friday night at Centre ICE arena, knocking off a shorthanded Alpena squad by a seven-goal margin, but could not leapfrog Marquette into the catbird seat in the NAHL North Division standings.

TC did lock down home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs - the first two games of which are set for Friday, April 2 and Saturday, April 3 at Centre ICE - and can still claim the regular season North crown with a win on Saturday and a Marquette loss.

Kyle Jean (Sault Ste. Marie, MI/TC North Stars/Lake Superior St.) had two goals and an assist, while Tim Opie (Troy, MI/TC North Stars) set a team single-game record with five assists, to pace the Traverse City offense. The Stars improved to 32-20-5, and remain tied with Marquette for the top spot in the NAHL North, but the Rangers own the tiebreaker with more total victories. Traverse City closes out the regular season slate on Saturday at Alpena, while third-place Janesville visits Marquette.

"It wasn't a pretty game, and they didn't have their full team, but we did what we had to do and that was win the game," said North Stars head coach/GM Anthony Palumbo. "We can only control our own game, we can't control what's going on in other rinks. It was a good effort for a couple periods tonight, but we did sort of let up there in the third period - I guess that's human nature when you're way ahead."

The IceDiggers, locked into the fifth and final slot in the NAHL North standings, played without five of its top players, all of whom were serving suspensions stemming from a late-game incident last Saturday at Motor City. The Stars stormed to a 3-0 lead after one period of play, a 7-0 edge after two, and cruised to a double-digit total for the first time in club lore. The previous record of nine goals was established back on Feb. 18, 2006 against Alpena.

Drew Strandberg (Thunder Bay, ONT/Thunder Bay SIJHL) stopped all nine shots he faced through two periods before giving way to Chris Paliafito (Shelbyville, KY/Owatonna NAHL) in the third, and posted his team-record 23rd victory of the season. The 23 wins are also enough to make Strandberg the team's career leader as well. Traverse City outshot the visitors by a 41-24 count, including 29-9 through 40 minutes of play.

Garrett Thompson (Traverse City, MI/TC North Stars) opened the scoring with his team-leading 24th goal of the season 2:48 into the contest, followed by markers from Eric McLintock (Traverse City, MI/ TC North Stars) at 4:06 and Bo Jacobs (Twin Lake, MI/TC North Stars) at 13:58.

Chris Salomone (Homer Glen, IL/TC North Stars), Phil Wendecker (Westland, MI/TC North Stars), Dan Radke (Orinda, CA/TC North Stars/ Lake Superior St.) and Jean rattled off second period lamplighters, with Jean, Andy Huff (Howell, MI/Honeybaked U18/Ferris State), and Alec Shields (Pittsburgh, PA/Pittsburgh Predators U18) potting third stanza tallies.

"Alpena isn't going to play like that again on Saturday," Palumbo said. "They'll get their guys back, they'll be ready to go after what happened here tonight, and there's no way they'll go out with a whimper. We have to be ready to play a game with playoff- like intensity."

The Stars-Diggers finale is slated for a 7 p.m. face-off.

For more information, call Lance-Michael Correia at (231) 632-5047, the Traverse City North Stars office at (231) 941-9200 or visit the team's Web site at: www.traversecitynorthstars.com.



North American Hockey League Stories from March 26, 2010


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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