“Another game — it’s another game,” Battalion general manager Adam Dennis said during Wednesday's media conference.
While that may be true it is a significant night for Stan Butler, now the head coach of the Erie Otters, who visit Memorial Gardens Thursday night.
The only head coach in team history was relieved of his Battalion coaching duties and as director of hockey operations on Dec. 8, 2019. He had held the position since the Troops joined the OHL as a Brampton-based expansion franchise for the 1998-99 season when a young 15-year-old Jason Spezza was his underage star player.
Butler had been on the visitor's bench when the Battalion faced the North Bay Centennials from 1998 to 2002, but this will be the first time coaching against his former team at North Bay Memorial Gardens.
Nonetheless, it is an awkward evening for the Battalion franchise. There is no real communication between Butler and the hockey operations with the North Bay Battalion. Those things happen. It can be the nature of the business.
A photo of Barclay Goodrow with the Stanley Cup in 2021 kind of shows that. Goodrow, along with his former Battalion teammates at a golf course in Aurora posed with the Stanley Cup. That photo had Stan Butler on the far left of the photo and Ryan Oulahen on the far right.
Erie is 16-28-5 for 37 points, last in the Midwest Division and Western Conference. Butler took over the bench from interim coaches Vince Laise and Wes Wolfe on Feb. 4 in a 5-1 home-ice loss to the London Knights.
The Otters are 0-4-0 under Butler and three games into a stretch of eight straight on the road. No doubt Butler feels Memorial Gardens would be the ideal spot for his first win with the Otters.
North Bay, with a won-lost-extended record of 35-14-2 for 72 points, is first in the Central Division with 17 games, a quarter of its schedule, left to play. The Battalion is six points ahead of the second-place Barrie Colts who upended the Niagara IceDogs 5-1 in St. Catharines Wednesday night.
The host Battalion downed the Colts 4-2 Sunday and is at the Sadlon Arena for the teams’ last meeting of the season Saturday night before visiting the Ottawa 67’s for a holiday Monday matinee. Ottawa, 36-11-4 for 76 points, sits atop the East Division and Eastern Conference.
Ryan Oulahen, who captained the club in 2004-05, his last of three seasons playing for Butler, took over as coach on an interim basis and was confirmed in the role on March 24, 2020.
Oulahen and Butler have faced each other as head coaches four times, during Oulahen’s two-plus seasons with the Flint Firebirds.
The teams split their meetings in Oulahen’s first campaign in Michigan, the Battalion winning 6-0 at Flint on Dec. 8, 2016, on a 35-save shutout by goaltender Julian Sime before the visiting Firebirds prevailed 6-3 on Feb. 24, 2017. The next season saw North Bay sweep the two games, 5-1 at Flint on Nov. 3, 2017, and 4-3 via shootout at home on Feb. 8, 2018, after the Firebirds’ Jalen Smereck forced overtime with a power-play goal at 19:58 of the third period.
Three players on the Battalion roster remain from Butler’s time as a coach. They include overager Kyle Jackson as well as Liam Arnsby and Paul Christopoulos, who were both rookies in the former coach’s last season.
Dennis said the Troops are looking for a consistent effort throughout the Barrie, Erie and Ottawa games.
“For our group, it’s about trying to find that peak performance level before playoffs. I don’t know that we’ve hit it yet, but we’ve certainly been close at times, and I think that consistency, that high level of play, is something that we’ve got to make sure we get, regardless of the opponent.”
With files from battalionhockey.com
