The game on Saturday night at the Sadlon Centre perfectly emulated how the season series has gone between the North Bay Battalion and the Barrie Colts. Throughout the 60 minutes the teams traded chances and matched each other goal for goal on the scoreboard.
In overtime they traded chances and neither goaltender was willing to bend to their opposition, with spectacular saves on both sides. In the end, a shootout decided the winner as Alliston, Ontario native Lirim Amidovski finally secured a 5-4 victory for the visiting Troops after 10 rounds of the shootout.
This added another exciting chapter to what continues to be a storied rivalry, ever since the Battalion moved to the Gateway City. North Bay (20-27-4-0) and Barrie (33-15-2-2) have had some great postseason battles and this year, even though they are at opposite ends of the standings, the games between these squads have been entertaining, and not at all one sided. There’s also the added element of these teams having traded some prominent personnel this season and in fact seven of the eight goals were scored by either a current or a former member of the Battalion.
“There’s a couple of familiar faces on that team, and it’s definitely nice to see them again. But on the ice, it’s all business and we took care of that today, and have to keep rolling,” says Ihnat Pazii, who spoke to the OHL Tonight broadcast after the game.
Back and forth they went in Barrie, just like they have all season. North Bay took the first game in September 4-1. Barrie won the next two on back-to-back nights at the end of December. The Troops retaliated with a 2-0 shutout victory on home ice in January.
The goaltending matchup has also been intriguing this season. Saturday’s starters were Sam Hillebrandt for the Colts, who was 0-2 against North Bay this season, but gave up just three goals in the two losses. The Battalion countered with Mike McIvor, who carried a record of 1-2 in three starts against Barrie. He gave up a combined seven goals in the two losses, but also made 22 saves in the 2-0 win on January 16, one of the high points of the season.
While both goaltenders would have loved to have made a few more saves in regulation, they made up for it in extra time as they were phenomenal in overtime and combined to stop 17 shooters in the shootout.
McIvor (14-14-2-0) made a huge save at 1:20 into the extra frame. The Colts came in on a two-on-one and McIvor made a huge glove save off a shot from Grayson Tiller. Hillebrandt (17-10-0-2) then stopped Shamar Moses on a partial breakaway. With just over a minute to go, McIvor made another big stop going down to the ice and taking away what looked like a for-sure goal by the Colts, while Hillebrandt countered by kicking out the right pad on a shot that was taken from the left circle and redirected off a skate toward Hillebrandt, but he was quick to turn it away.
In the shootout, Nick Wellenreiter was the first shooter for North Bay and he scored, while former Battalion Anthony Romani beat McIvor as Barrie’s second shooter. That was it until Amidovski ended things eight rounds later.
The Battalion never trailed in this contest and built up four separate one-goal leads. North Bay opened the scoring 11:27 into the contest. The Troops broke out of their own zone on a three-on-one play, with Ethan Procyszyn leading the procession down the left wing. He promptly placed a perfect pass on to the tape of Jacob Therrien who redirected the one-timer past Hillebrandt for his ninth goal of the season.
Cole Beaudoin (17) scored 15:32 off a rebound in front of the North Bay net to tie the game 1-1.
Shortly after, it was Pazii (1) scoring his first of the season at 17:25. Amidovski carried the puck into the zone on the right side and dropped it back to the trailer who was Pazii. Wellenreiter went to the front of the net and got tied up with a Colts defender right in front of Hillenbrandt, which screened him as Pazii to the shot to make it 2-1 for the visitors. Pazii celebrated by throwing the proverbially monkey off his back, and after the game said, “It feels good to get that one. Especially to get it to help the team win on the road.”
Pazii would get on the scoresheet again later in the game. After former Battalion Captain Owen Van Steensel (15) scored at 4:36 of the second period, Pazii struck again. It was the work of first-year forward Ryder Carey that led to the goal as he battled on the boards for the puck in the Colts end, stripping a defender of the biscuit from below the goal line and feeding it in front to Pazii (2) who was left all alone for a point blank chance which Hillebrandt could not stop. The goal put the Troops back in front 3-2 at 12:29.
Another former Battalion Anthony Romani (8) tied it 3-3 near the end of the second. But Anaheim Ducks prospect Procyszyn picked up his second point of the night, with his 29th goal of the season at 3:02 of the third. He deflected in a point shot from Aaron Enright which went up and over the shoulder of Hillebrandt.
The Colts evened the game again at 11:53 when Romani picked up his second of the game and ninth of the season to round out the scoring in regulation.
The Battalion are tied once again with the Ottawa 67’s for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, with a game in Ottawa coming up on Family Day Monday. “We just have to have a good game. We need to be strong, be physical, play hard in their end and be responsible defensively,” says Pazii.
Both teams have 44 points at the moment, but the 67’s play the Kitchener Rangers on Sunday afternoon at home, and they have won two in a row, and are 4-6-0-0 in their past ten. Coming off the win over Brampton on Thursday at home, this win for the Troops over Barrie is the first time they have won back-to-back games since they beat, ironically, Brampton and Barrie in back to back games on January 11 and 16. They will be looking for their first three-game winning streak since they started the season 3-0.