North Stars prepare for Team USA

BY JAMES COOK
jcook@record-eagle.com

October 08, 2008 12:00 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- A fast start can come to a halt quickly, but a slow one is very difficult to recover from.

Just ask Anthony Palumbo.

His Traverse City North Stars are looking to extend their 6-2 start this weekend with a home series against the Team USA U-17s on Friday and Saturday. It marks the start of eight straight North American Hockey League games at Centre ICE.

The Stars struggled out of the gate last season, and it proved to be too much to overcome as the team finished two points out of a playoff spot.

"Last year, we really got behind the eight ball with how we started," Palumbo said. "It got us in too big a hole to get out of."

With their 6-2 start, the Stars have the league's second-best point total.

Mahoning Valley is also off to a strong start at 5-0-1, putting the Phantoms one point behind the Stars with two games in hand. Mahoning and 6-0 Topeka are the only NAHL teams without a loss.

The Phantoms and Stars don't collide until an Oct. 31-Nov. 2 three-game set in Traverse City.

Kyle Bonis -- selected the North Division Player of the Week after a three-point weekend in a two-game sweep of Alpena -- has put up 48 points in 47 games in a North Stars sweater and owns a plus-8 rating with only eight minutes in the penalty box over that time.

This season, he's tied for the league lead with three game-winning goals in eight contests.

"He does a lot of things for our team," Palumbo said. "He's not one of those guys that all he does is score goals. If you look at our record since Kyle Bonis joined our team, we've won a lot of games."

But it hasn't been just Bonis.

Seventeen North Stars have notched points this season. And with the Stars' success, no one on the team has a plus/minus rating higher than Bo Jacobs' plus-4, demonstrating how the team's scoring is spread out among its lines.

"We're getting production from everybody," Palumbo said. "Saturday, Dan Radke had his first two points of the season. We're getting good games from guys like Jarrod LaBelle, Marc Thompson and Chris Salomone. Last year, we were always talking about the same two or three guys. We played all 24 guys on the roster last weekend."

NET GAINS: One big reason the Stars have had so much early success is their goalie tandem of C.J. Motte and Brandon Stephenson.

Motte -- who was honorable mention for the Goalie of the Week for the second straight week -- is eighth in the league in goal-against average at 2.25 and Stephenson is at 2.94. Both are 3-1 on the season.

"Brandon having a year under his belt, you can tell he's a veteran now," Palumbo said. "C.J. has surprised me a bit. I knew he'd be a good goalie, but he has jumped right in. Right now, I've got a lot of confidence in both of them."

The Stars are one of just five teams with two goalies posting GAAs below 3.00.

ICE CHIPS: Former North Stars forward Clinton Bourbonais is tied for sixth in the league in scoring, one of four St. Louis Bandits in the top 10. ... Nate Urbaniak is tied with Chad Pietila -- the younger brother of ex-Star Aaron Pietila -- for 12th in the NAHL in scoring. ... Travis White and Mike Schenfeld are tied for 14th in the league among defensemen in scoring with three points each. ... TC is fifth in the league in power-play percentage (19.61 percent), tied for second in power-play goals (10) and third in penalty-kill percentage (87.76 percent). ... Eric O'Hearn is tied for fourth in three-star points with six. The other four players in the top five are from St. Louis.