Within three days the North Bay Battalion have added two new netminders.
On Friday, the Troops announced the signing of draft pick Christian Purboo, who made his debut in a 7-1 loss to the Mississauga Steelheads on Friday.
Then just before puck drop of the Troops contest against the Kingston Frontenacs, the Battalion announced that local defenceman Brady Lyle, who had requested a trade earlier in the week, was shipped to Owen Sound along with a 7th round pick in 2020 in exchange for goalie Christian Propp and a 10th round pick in 2020.
“I think it is good for everybody, hopefully it works out for Brady. He is going to a very good team in Owen Sound, probably a team favoured to win the championship this year but we wish him the best," Battalion coach Stan Butler said about the trade post game on Sunday.
"We have taken a request from a player and turned it into a positive and acquired a goalie that we think is a good young goalie who is only a 1999 birth year that we feel can play between the pipes here for a while and that is something we know we needed.”
Propp, a six-foot-two, 195-pound resident of Milton, Ont., was a fifth-round pick by the Barrie Colts from the Halton Hurricanes minor midgets in the 2015 OHL Priority Selection. Barrie dealt him to Owen Sound earlier Sunday for three picks, second- and fifth-rounders in 2019 and a 10th-rounder in 2020.
In 37 OHL games, Propp, who turned 18 on March 27, has a won-lost-extended record of 8-22-2, a goals-against average of 3.80 and a save percentage of .886.
He played for visiting Barrie in the Battalion’s season opener Sept. 22, giving up four goals in a 5-2 North Bay victory that included an empty-net goal.
Propp was shipped to the Attack by the Colts earlier in the day.
Lyle, a North Bay native who was the Battalion’s first-round pick in 2015 from Shattuck-St. Mary’s, a private school in Faribault, Minn., asked for a trade because he was unhappy with his ice time.
The Battalion, riding an eight-game losing streak, has seen three goaltenders staff the crease this season, in holdovers Julian Sime and Mat Woroniuk as well as Christian Purboo, who made his OHL debut in a 7-1 road loss Friday night to the Mississauga Steelheads.
North Bay was to play host to the Kingston Frontenacs at 2 p.m. Sunday, with Purboo getting the start.
