The Soo North Stars have dug themselves a hole that is going to be tough to get out of at the Air Canada Cup AAA midget national hockey championships.
The North Stars entered Tuesday night's game against the Atlantic champion St. John's Maple Leafs looking to rebound from a 4-3 loss on Monday night to the Waterloo Wolves.
The North Stars needed a win to keep pace as they sat tied with the Maple Leafs with identical 0-1 records. With the Calgary Northstars having already won earlier in the day, the winner of the Soo-St. John's game would keep pace with the rest of the field while the loser would drop back.
In the end, St. John's showed why they were so highly touted coming into the tournament by beating the North Stars 6-2 Tuesday night at Memorial Gardens.
St. John's had the first major opportunity to take the early lead when they were give a two-man advantage five minutes into the game but could only muster one shot on goal and both penalties were killed off.
The North Stars opened the scoring 11:50 into the first period on a goal by Chris Towell, but St. John's battled right back and tied the game 11 seconds later when Mike Stevens scored to tie the game. Adam Kauppi, who was named the North Stars Player of the Game, scored at 13:32 to give the Soo a 2-1 lead but the Maple Leafs battled back again to tie the game as Scott Brophy scored at 17:12.
In the second period St. John's took over. Goals by John Adams and Sean Wadden just under two minutes apart gave the Maple Leafs a 4-2 advantage and Ted Purcell, the St. John's Player of the Game, beat North Star netminder Michael Maulucci top corner to give the Leafs a 3 goal cushion to work with.
Wadden, who scored 74 goals in the regular season for St. John's, scored his second goal of the evening at 2:54 of the third period to all but seal the victory for the Maple Leafs. Maulucci stopped 17 shots in the loss while Devin O'Brien made 25 stops between the pipes for St. John's. The loss drops the North Stars record to 0-2 while the Maple Leafs improve to 1-1 and moves them into a tie with Yorkton, Calgary and Waterloo, who all have 2 points thus far in the tournament. The only undefeated team left in the tournament is the Quebec representative, Les Gaulois Du College Antoine-Girouard, which has beat Calgary and Yorkton.
Next action for the North Stars will be tonight when they take on the Pacific region champion Calgary Northstars at 7 p.m. at Memorial Gardens.