The Battalion need to find some offense. Going into Friday night’s game in Sudbury, they were second last in goals scored in the Ontario Hockey League this season; their 89 goals only ahead of the woeful Peterborough Petes who have 76. And through the first two periods it looked like they were getting their Christmas wish early as they held three separate one goal leads over their division rivals, the Sudbury Wolves. Unfortunately, the goal scoring dried up in the third period and the Wolves came away with a 6-3 victory, sending North Bay (13-15-3-0) into the holiday break with a loss.
The Wolves (17-10-4-0) were 6-3-1-0 in their previous ten contests coming into Friday night's affair, and they showed exactly how they have found success this season, by keeping teams close and not letting the deficits get too large, evident of their goal differential at exactly zero coming into the game, with 106 goals for and 106 goals against. They followed that same script against the Troops, falling behind by a goal three times, before finally getting ahead at 6:37 of the third period.
A pass from behind the Battalion net by Hudson Chitaroni found its way right onto the stick of Blake Clayton (5), who was left all alone in front of the net with plenty of time to wait out the Troops sprawling goaltender Mike McIvor. Clayton was able to lift the puck up over McIvor’s glove hand to put it in the back of the net for a 4-3 lead, and it wound up being the game winning goal.
Two empty net goals by the Wolves within the final minute of play made the score seem a lot more lopsided than how the game was actually played.
It was the Battalion who were controlling large segments of the contest, and looking to go into the holiday break by breaking out of what’s been somewhat of a scoring slump. The Battalion have scored more than three goals in a game just twice over their last ten contests and they hit that mark once again against the Wolves.
Shamar Moses (1-2-3), Jacob Therrien (1-1-2), and Jacob LeBlanc (1-1-2) had multi-point nights, but it wasn’t enough to put away the Wolves. Especially, when they countered with a Nathan Villeneuve hat-trick and Winnipeg Jets prospect (6th round 2024, #187 overall) Keiran Walton managing to extend his point streak to 13 games. The highlight was a play where Walton went coast to coast and deked out several North Bay players before burying a shot past McIvor (10-6-2-0) to tie the game 2-2 at 8:10 of the second.
Walton finished the contest with a goal and an assist to continue his torrid pace with 32 points over his last 13 games, 21 of those points are from assists.
The goal by Walton in the second period was the second time the Wolves managed to tie the game, but North Bay regained the lead less than a minute later when LeBlanc ripped in a shot from the high slot, sending the puck flying over the glove side shoulder of Sudbury goaltender Nate Krawchuck (12-6-4-0) for his fifth goal of the season, putting the Troops up 3-2 at 9:07.
LeBlanc was coming off an intermission interview with the OHL tonight broadcast where he talked about the teams’ focus going into the game.
“We just want to go into the break on a positive note. I think that we need to take care of business here first, and not think too much about the time off and focus on having a good game here.”
LeBlanc and the Troops were having a good game until the third, and they were right in it through the first 40+ minutes, until the Clayton goal turned the momentum.
The Battalion opened the scoring on a two-man advantage just over four minutes into the game with two of Sudbury’s better penalty killers in the box. First Tayjon Street was called for hooking at 3:29 and then Clayton was called for cross-checking at 4:03.
The Battalion didn’t waste much time capitalizing on the 5-on-3 as Moses (7) took a shot from the high slot and with Ethan Procyszyn screening the goaltender, the shot from Moses got through to give the Battalion the 1-0 lead. That was Moses’ first point in the last five games, but prior to that, he had an eight-game point streak, and the Toronto native is still producing at just over a point-per-game pace since joining the Battalion, with 27 points in 26 contests.
North Bay then found themselves down by a man when Wyatt Kennedy was called for high sticking at 14:54. The Wolves needed just 10 seconds of power play time to tie the game. Walton took the shot from above the circle and it was deflected in by Villeneuve (11) who was screening McIvor. The teams were tied after one with North Bay outshooting the Wolves 13-8.
“That’s the start we were looking for,” said LeBlanc. “I thought our forecheck was pretty strong and I thought we had a good power play to start the game.”
The second period felt like they were running the same script through the opening minutes.
With North Bay carrying a power play over from the first period, the Troops took advantage once again, when Therrien (6) sent a shot in from the left side faceoff circle, using a Sudbury defender as a screen, and beating the Wolves goaltender for a 2-1 North Bay lead, just 1:13 into the second.
The Wolves came back once again at 14:30 with Villeneuve (12) getting his second of the game, getting behind the defence and redirecting a cross-ice pass from Ondrej Molnar before the goals from Walton and LeBlanc came later in the period, sending the teams to the locker rooms knotted at 3-3 with 20 minutes left to play.
After the Wolves took the 4-3 lead Kocha Delic (9) and Nilleneuve (13) added empty net goals to round out the scoring.
It’s a tough way to go into the break for the Battalion who remain three points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“I think getting guys back healthy will be a big boost for us in the second half,” said LeBlanc. “We have a ton of belief in our room, we all believe we can be a good team in this division. We had our ups and downs in the first half, but if we stick with the process and stick to our game, I think we’ll be fine.”
The Battalion went 2 for 4 on the power play and 2 for 3 on the penalty kill, outshooting Sudbury 35-31 in front of 3548 fans at the Sudbury Community Arena. North Bay returns to action on December 28 when they visit the conference leading Barrie Colts.
