The North Bay Battalion travels west on Highway 17 to face the Soo Greyhounds for a pair of games this weekend, stretching the Ontario Hockey League team’s run of road dates to four.
North Bay, which lost its two games on an eastern swing last weekend, opens the trip at 7:07 p.m. Friday before completing the back-to-back set Saturday night. The Battalion has a won-lost-extended record of 10-11-2 for 22 points, fifth in the Central Division.
Soo is 12-12-0 for 24 points, third in the West Division. The Greyhounds fell 8-5 Sunday to the Brampton Steelheads to end a three-game road trip during which they lost 7-2 to the Niagara IceDogs and 6-3 to the Erie Otters.
Banged up combatants
The Battalion is dealing a numbe of injuries, including broken collarbones that have sidelined Anthony Romani, a 58-goal scorer last season, and Ihnat Pazii, both of whom are weeks away from returning. In addition, Stepan Chukharev has missed three games with an upper-body injury, while Andrew LeBlanc and Kent Greer left a 4-3 home-ice win over the Guelph Storm last Thursday night and haven’t played since then.
Tyson Rismond, who was recalled from the Haliburton County Huskies for the eastern trip, has returned to the junior A squad.
However, the Troops are not alone. The Soo Greyhounds have been struggling with the injury bug too. Last weekend the Hounds limped home with three road losses as head coach John Dean admitted "he has never seen anything like this," referring to the injuries this season.
Mini playoff series?
Matt Marquardt, Battalion assistant coach, handled the Wednesday media scrum with Ryan Oulahen away with Team CHL at the CHL-USA Challenge which the CHL swept with two wins including a 6-1 win in London on Tuesday night and a tight 3-2 win over USA on Wednesday night in Oshawa.
Oulahen was behind the bench with Soo Greyhounds star Brady Martin who was named to the CHL squad. Martin tops the Greyhounds with 11 goals and 12 assists for 23 points in as many games
Marquardt notes that injuries open up opportunities for others.
“One way we could see this is it’s some accelerated development for our guys, getting some guys in some situations that, at their age, they might not have been in had it not been for situations like that,” assistant coach Matt Marquardt said Wednesday, noting that Soo poses a formidable test.
Marquardt says playing back-to-back against the same team gives both teams a playoff-type feel.
"We can treat this like a mini playoff series of sorts and play to our identity.
"They’re a good team. They’re well coached. They’re structured, and I feel we are too.”
Coming home for Marquardt
Marquardt, a 37-year-old North Bay native in his first season with the Battalion after three years as an assistant with the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds, said coaching in his home town is “unbelievable.”
“This is a dream come true for me. Wanting to play for this team was my first goal as a young hockey player, for the Centennials, that is. With the way things went around my time to play major junior, the team wasn’t here anymore, so to be able to have this come full circle and mesh these two worlds and now be on the coaching side of things and be in North Bay around my family and friends is very special.”
Marquardt played four Quebec Major Junior Hockey League seasons with the Moncton Wildcats and Baie-Comeau Drakkar, culminating in 2007-08. In 203 games, he scored 100 goals and added 64 assists for 164 points while accumulating 203 penalty minutes.
Batts Stats and starting on time
The Battalion dropped a 5-1 decision Sunday to the Kingston Frontenacs after losing 4-1 Saturday night to the Peterborough Petes.
Having lost 9-0 at Kingston on Oct. 4 and 6-2 to the visiting Frontenacs on Oct. 27, the Battalion has been outscored 20-3 in three games by the team it eliminated in a five-game Eastern Conference quarterfinal last spring.
The Battalion, which has allowed opponents 12 of their 94 goals in the first two minutes of periods, including overtime, has given up one such goal in each of the last five games, during which the Troops are 2-3-0.
The games at Sault Ste. Marie can be seen live in North Bay on YourTV Channels 12 and 700.
