Wudrick inspires North Stars over Brave

A hat-trick from import Geordie Wudrick has helped the Newcastle North Stars to a perfect win to start the season with a 7-4 win over the CBR Brave on Sunday night.

With both teams coming off the back of a win from Saturday’s matches, both teams came out firing.

After absorbing some early pressure, the North Stars put the first points on the board when Brian Bales tipped in a backhander off his own rebound.

Although there was some scrappy play from both sides, the North Stars doubled their advantage when Wudrick went top shelf after receiving a clean pass from Moffatt.

The North Stars top line is build great chemistry with Wudrick reciprocating Moffatt’s assist in the second goal as the North Stars went 3-0 on the back of a powerplay.

In his first game of the season, 2014’s leading goal scorer Stephen Blunden wouldn’t be kept quiet for long, getting the Brave on the board 30 seconds after the North Stars third goal.

However, the North Stars responded just before the break when Wudrick claimed his second with a quick shot that bounced off Brave goalie Stuart Woodall helmet and into the net.

With a 4-1 at the break, the North Stars wanted to further assert their dominance, claiming their next two goals on power play opportunities to Jan Safar and Wudrick’s hat-trick goal on a 5-on-3 opportunity with three minutes remaining in the second period.

At 6-1, the Brave had to dig deep. With seconds remaining in the second, import Scott Pitt ensured the visitors went to the break with some hope, scoring from close range.

Early in the third, the Brave cut the score to three with Blunden’s second goal off a rebound.

It was as close as the Brave would get as the North Stars responded immediately through Moffatt.

With tempers flaring and players tiring, the pace of the slowed.

North Stars goaltender Dayne Davis kept the Brave out until with 77 seconds from full time, Kelly Geoffrey chipped the puck over the keeper, bringing the score to 7-4.

Brave coach Brad Hunt said winning the third period was a positive for his side.

“We had a lot of penalties, discipline was horrible, but we can play a lot better,” Hunt said. “[The North Stars] exploited a number of weaknesses of ours tonight, as we played on the bigger ice, compared to training on the smaller ice [at home]. [On smaller surfaces] passes are shorter, and here it takes more energy to get to the other end and we have to spread out a lot further”.

North Stars Joey Theriault said the club with thrilled with the start to the season.

“Coming out with the boys on the first weekend and getting 6 points, we will take that any day,” Theriault said. “We came out flying and dominated the first and second periods in particular. We knew CBR would be a tough team to beat, we are really pumped so we fought to dominate and we outplayed them.”

Next week, the North Stars travel to Melbourne to take on the Mustangs then the Ice at the Medibank Icehouse while the Brave are at home to the Adrenaline on Saturday night.