It is do or die time for the Battlefords Midget Stars in their first playoff series in nearly a decade.
The Stars lost game one of the best-of-five series Friday in Saskatoon against the Contacts by a 5-3 score.
Saskatoon scored the series' first goal midway through the first period when Wyatt Sloboshan beat Rylan Toth.
Ryan Frehlick tallied from Regan Yew and Austin Duzan two minutes later for the Stars.
Saskatoon's Rodney Â鶹´«Ã½AVam responded and the Contacts led 2-1 after the first period.
In the second, the Stars were outshot 17-11 in the frame and went down 3-1 after Kade Kehoe scored a power play marker early.
The Stars battled back to tie the game before the second period ended. Duzan scored a power play goal from Braden Lacoursiere and Maxim Powiada. Kent Walchuk also scored from Spencer Bast and Lacoursiere.
In the third period, the Stars were unsuccessful in two power play chances and had two of their own penalties to kill. A five-minute major to Lacoursiere for head contact, resulted in a suspension, forcing him to miss game two of the series.
Kehoe scored an even stretch goal for Saskatoon in the third period and Vukie Mpofu netted the insurance marker while the Stars tried to kill off the major penalty.
Toth made 35 saves in the Stars' net while Rylan Parenteau made 24 saves for the win.
Those two goaltenders were back between the pipes for game two Sunday afternoon at the Civic Centre.
The Stars had an early five-on-three power play Sunday, but couldn't capitalize despite getting shots through on Parenteau.
At the other end of the ice, Toth was strong making three huge pad saves to keep the game scoreless after the first period.
In the second period, Saskatoon's Kolten Olynek netted the game's first goal. The Stars were a bit slow on a line change and Olynek found some open space in the neutral zone before going end-to-end to beat Toth.
Near the end of the second period, some of the bad blood from game one appeared to spill over. Powiada nailed Olynek and received a major penalty for head contact on the play. That drew the attention of all the Contacts on the ice and all five skaters for each team were engaged in throwing punches with their gloves on.
Along with Powiada's major penalty and game misconduct, there were nine other 10-minute misconducts and 11 other minor penalties issued on the play adding up to 127 penalty minutes. More importantly the teams would be working with shorter benches for half of the third period in a 1-0 game.
Early in the third period, Mpofu scored on a point shot on a power play to give the Contacts the 2-0 lead.
The Stars refused to quit and Terrin Belosowsky scored from Yew and Josh Bly with six minutes remaining. The Stars continued to pressure the Contacts late in the third period and with less than two minutes left, the Stars' leading scoring in the regular season found some open space in front of the Contacts' net. Bly wired a shot off the crossbar. That was as close as the Stars would get to tying the game.
Saskatoon took a 2-0 series lead after winning the game 2-1. Toth, again, played well for the Stars making 28 saves while Parenteau made 27 for the win.
"In both games we battled hard and it has just been one or two plays that have affected us," said Stars head coach Martin Smith. "The guys never quit. There are a lot of positives and we aren't rolling over and dying. We are going to come out and throw everything at them Tuesday night."
Game three will be played in Saskatoon Tuesday and the Stars will be searching for their first win at Schroh Arena in Saskatoon since their 4-0 win there in early December.
"As long as we have another game we have another chance. We can't dwell on this. We have to build on what we did well and be ready to go Tuesday," said Smith.
