In a rare Friday night game at North Bay Memorial Gardens, the Battalion came away with a thrilling 5-4 overtime victory over the visiting Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds.
“It feels good,” head coach Ryan Oulahen said on taking four out of four points from the northern rivals.
"Ultimately that is a real good hockey team over there. I know they’re a bit short staffed as we are too.
“I think for the most part, just getting the belief back with this group is really important right now.”
Compared to the previous night against the Greyhounds, this time the Troops opened the scoring, with Nic Sima potting his second just over five minutes in. Before the end of the period, Matvey Petrov continued his hot streak by scoring his 25th, 2-0 Battalion after 20.
In the second, the Soo mounted a comeback with goals from Marco Mignosa (10) and Kalvyn Watson (5) to tie it at two.
“I really liked our first two periods,” explained Oulahen. “It’s funny how things go sometimes, if you compare last night’s game to tonight’s, we found our first two periods tonight our best two of these two games together in terms of playing consistently, playing solid.”
“Everyone buying in, not really anything dangerous other than the two bad bounces that went against us.”
The injury bug has hit North Bay hard in the past few months, and it bit again during the game. Rookie defenceman Tnias Mathurin left the game after colliding with the Sault goaltender while going past the net
“I thought losing Tnias there was tough on our group,” Oulahen said. “We’re a D core that likes to use six guys and we got tired in the third but we stuck it out.”
The Greyhounds continued their momentum early in the third as they went up 3-2 off the second goal from Watson and his sixth of the season.
However, just after the midway point of the period, Anthony Romani scored his first of the season of a highlight reel deke of Greyhounds netminder Tucker Tynan.
“He deserved it and that’s why he’s getting more ice time now and playing really well,” explained the head coach. “You just had the sense it was a matter of time.
“I said to him and all our guys who get these goals that I’m jealous of him because my first goal was a tip and these guys are scoring highlight reel beautiful plays. Really, really happy for him.”
Less than a minute later, Dalyn Wakely scored his 11th to put the Troops up 4-3. The lead wouldn’t last, however, as Tye Kartye scored his 30th to tie the game at four and force overtime.
Yet, it was North Bay who prevailed as Petrov scored his second of the game (26) to end it with just a minute left in overtime.
The Troops will be back in action Sunday when they host Shane Wright and the Kingston Frontenacs.
“Another really good team in our league, playing really good hockey especially as of late,” stated Oulahen. “We’ll get a day to debrief and recover and get energy for Sunday.”
You can catch the game, which starts at 1 p.m. on YourTV North Bay, or the Frontline Gameday Broadcast on the Battalion YouTube channel.
