The Soo North Stars opened the Air Canada Cup Monday night with a tough 4-3 loss to the Central Region champion WaterlooWolves.
The North Stars showed that they could play with the best AAA midget hockey teams in Canada as they fought back from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to tie the game only to see the game slip away late.
The first period saw the teams battled hard but had nothing to show for it as the score was tied at 0 heading into the first intermission. Despite the 0-0 deadlock, both teams had a number of good chances and narrowly missed getting the game's first goal. Early in the period Michael D'Agostini was stopped by Waterloo goaltender Andrew Farwell on a breakaway and moments later North Star netminder Michael Maulucci made a big stop on Waterloo's Ben Moser who tipped a point shot at the Soo goal.
Nearing the midway point of the period D'Agostini and David Turco moved in on a shorthanded 2-on-1 but were again foiled by the Wolves netminder. Moments after that Rob Hanson was robbed by Maulucci who match his Waterloo counterpart save for save.
The physical element was also there and was evident late in the first when Waterloo's T.J. Parkes laid a thundering hit on the North Stars' Adam Combs that sent both players to the ice.
Waterloo opened the scoring early in the second period when Sean Ryan walked around the Soo defence and beat Maulucci with a shorthanded goal to give the Wolves the lead. The Wolves wasted no time in adding to the lead as Brock Schultz scored a power play goal less than a minute later to give the Wolves a 2 goal cushion. The North Stars battled back late in the period and scored to cut the Waterloo lead in half when Michael Sharp scored at 16:38.
Waterloo restored the 2 goal lead at the 19:00 mark when Duncan Snyder scored a power play goal, but the Soo fought back again and Combs scored 21 seconds after Snyder made it 3-1 and the Soo trailed 3-2 heading into the final frame.
The Soo took the momentum from the Combs goal late in the second and turned that momentum into the tying goal as Andrew Harrison tied the game 3-3 1:32 into the third period. The score stayed tied until just past the midway point of the period when a defensive mishap led to a Waterloo goal, a goal that turned into the game winner.
Maulucci came out to play the puck in the faceoff circle and, when trying to clear the puck, had his clearing pass stolen by Parkes, who scored into the open net to give the Wolves the 4-3 victory.
Maulucci stopped 22 shots in all while Farwell stopped 25 shots in the win for Waterloo. D'Agostini earned player of the game honours for the North Stars while Rob Hanson earned game star honours for Waterloo.
The North Stars now prep for their second round robin game of the Air Canada Cup when they face the Atlantic Champion St. John's Maple Leafs tonight at 7 p.m. at Memorial Gardens.