After a solid effort Wednesday night that ended in a tight loss to one of the league's best teams, the Kindersley Jr Klippers welcomed the Notre Dame Hounds to town for their sixth meeting of the year and the Hounds first game since December. With a back forth first two periods and a defensive third, the Klippers grinded out a 3-2 win to snap their five game losing skid.

At the start of the period, the Hounds managed to enter the Klippers zone and stay there for a while, but they were kept to the outsides and couldn't generate shots while the Klippers were getting pucks on net on the rush. The Hounds took an early hooking call thanks to Jake Sacritini, and the klippers put up three shots on that initial man advantage, but couldn't solve Austin Elliot in the moment. 

After that, the end to end action began. Both teams were able to generate chances with the Hounds seeming to throw everything they could at the net through some sort of screen, but the Klippers managed to tighten things up in the middle with gutsy shot blocking. 

Twelve minutes into the period, the Hounds were gifted their first goal of the game when Oliver Band streaking down the right side of the ice decided to just fire shot on net and it surprised Matt Pesenti who did get a piece of it, but it squirted through fivehole to give the Hounds the first lead of the game.

With less than two minutes left in the period, Josh Pufahl was called on an interference penalty that gave the Hounds their first opportunity on the man advantage since the holiday break. Not only did the Hounds not take advantage but the Klippers made them pay when Andrew Blocker disrupted the play near the blue line and started to hustle down the left side of the ice on a 3-on-1 with Liam Bell stepping up on the right and Jaxon Georget trailing. Blocker tried his cross crease pass, the defender laid down to block it, but Georget followed the puck and picked it out to feed Bell back door to tie it with 53 seconds left in the first.

After 1: Klippers 1 -1 Hounds, shots 14-9 Hounds

The Klippers killed off the remaining few seconds of the powerplay to start the period and got a powerplay of their own less than two minutes into the period. The powerplay started slow and were sent back into their own zone a few times early, but they spent the final 40 seconds of the man advantage in the offensive zone but still could not find a powerplay answer for Elliot.

A bit of a scary moment came when Josh Morton and Oliver Band were both chasing the puck behind the net in the Klippers zone and Morton gave a shove to Band, and he went down hard head first into the boards and laid there for a bit. Band was bloodied up and left the game but was seen standing in the tunnel afterward, while Morton went to the box for boarding, and the Hounds capitalized on this when they scored on the powerplay on a beautiful wrist shot from Kevin Anderson that went bar down, assists to Nik Sombrowski and Connor Nolan.

After that powerplay, Andrew Blocker got sprung on a breakaway at centre from a gorgeous feed up the middle by Liam Bell, and Blocker made an even nicer move to try and beat Elliot but the Saskatoon Blade made a great save. That said, Blocker's move seemed to generate some momentum however as the Klippers started to find some offensive zone, and on the cycle Carson Baylis would send the puck back to Nathan DeGraves at the line, who cut in and took a shot that was stopped. Josh Danis tried a shot but missed the puck, and that left it for Cash Arntsen who slipped the rebound through Danis' screen to score and tie the game with under six minutes left in the period.

Less than a minute later, the Klippers took the lead when Karson Blanchette picked up a loose puck and cycled it into the corner for newly minted captain Jaxon Georget, and came out from the right side of the net with a backhand through a defenceman's screen and beat Elliot for Georget's first goal as captain, and Blanchette earned his first point in the SJHL as a callup.

In the final minute of the period, Nathan DeGraves breaking out from his own zone sent a pass from the right side of the net and after the pass took a Blake Rasmuson on the forecheck caught DeGraves in a hard knee. Degraves was down for a while, but would return to the game later in the third and the Klippers would get a full five minute powerplay.

After 2: Klippers 3 - 2 Hounds, shots 14-10 Hounds in the period, 28-19 Hounds overall

With 4:14 of powerplay to start the third, the Klippers again were able to get some solid chances throughout the man advantage, but again they were stymied on the powerplay. Aiden Bangs had two great chances on the powerplay in a row coming off the right wall, sneaking towards the middle of the slot, and firing around a screen. He missed the net just barely the first time, and the second caused a ruckus in front of the net on the rebound.

Bangs would pick up the only penalty of the period when he was caught on a slashing call behind the play with just under three minutes left in the period, and the Klippers closed things up defensively and hardly allowed the Hounds any time to get set up and they never had a chance to pull the goaltender on the man advantage. After it ended, Elliot finally did find his way to the bench but the Hounds were never able to generate much for momentum and the Klippers played a clean defensive game in the third to finish off for the win.

FINAL: Klippers 3 - 2 Hounds, shots 10-10 in the period, 39-29 Hounds overall

GAME NOTES:

After stopping 40/41 shots the night before, Matt Pesenti followed up that performance with 37/39 saves against the Hounds, and as usual there's a couple of highlight reel saves in that mix. Out of the three that did beat him, two have been on the powerplay.

With Liam Bell's goal, the Klippers now have a league second nine shorthanded goals on the season, and Bell has become the fourth Klipper defenceman to score shorthanded this year along with Josh Pufahl, Ethan Grabowski, and Chase Friedt-Mohr. Only three other defencemen in the league have shorthanded goals this season.

In just his second game, Karson Blanchette earned his first SJHL point with an assist on Georget's goal in the second period, and for as much as Blanchette was leaned on in these two games he handled the pressure well. He played top line minutes with the likes of Georget and Lindsay with the only exception being in the final minutes of the game when the Klippers needed to shut things down for the win. Blanchette will now return to Prince Albert to continue playing his AAA year with the Mintos.

With the win, the Klippers still have a chance to tie the season series against the Hounds. It currently sits 4-2 in favour of the Hounds with two games left against one another this season.