Former Battalion Captain Marcus McIvor got the crowd pumping in the pregame ceremonies.
Current Battalion goaltender Mike McIvor had the crowd roaring during the game with every save.
The seventh man was alive and well and making their voices heard as the Troops scored eight times in an 8-1 thumping of the Oshawa Generals in game six of the Eastern Conference finals at Memorial Gardens on Sunday afternoon.
North Bay has overcome a 3-0 series deficit to tie things up 3-3 in this best-of-seven series which will conclude on Monday evening in Oshawa.
The Battalion jumped out to a big lead scoring four times in the opening twenty minutes and rode that momentum through the final 40 minutes of play.
“That first period certainly is the difference,” says Battalion Head Coach Ryan Oulahen. “You have that feeling as a coach, the puck drops and we were ready. The word I’m going to keep using with this team is relentless. Their backs are against the wall, you get the home crowd going and we had an awesome start.”
The Battalion got an early goal, less than sixty seconds in, to kick off game six. It’s too bad assists only get awarded to the last two players to touch the puck before the goal because it was a full five-player effort to create the scoring chance. Wyatt Kennedy sent the puck to the near side boards at the North Bay blue line where Ty Nelson picked it up. He fed it up the middle in the neutral zone to Ethan Procyszyn who tipped it quickly to Dalyn Wakely who came into the attacking zone with speed. Wakely played it to the near side middle boards where Owen Van Steensel took control. Van Steensel who is NHL draft eligible this offseason, put on the breaks then pushed past a defender on his way to the net with his linemates joining him to crash the crease. He put it into Procyszyn’s skates, who kicked it back to Van Steensel in the slot, who fed it over to Wakely at the far side post who buried it for his league leading 13th goal of these playoffs, and his 19th career playoff goal overall.
Shortly after the goal, Battalion forward Sandis Vilmanis was called for slashing, giving Oshawa their first power play of the game. Oshawa came into the game with four power-play goals scored on twenty chances in this series.
To listen to the Frontline Game 6 post-game show click HERE.
Nothing came of that Oshawa power play, and later in the period, Oshawa’s Connor Lockhart was penalized for boarding just under 11 minutes in when he drove Ty Nelson headfirst into the boards behind the North Bay net. The officials didn’t review the call which the "7th-Man" felt was a five-minute major for a head check, but the Troops didn’t need five minutes to capitalize on the man advantage.
Vilmanis (10) was in the right spot at the top of the crease as a shot came in from the point, bouncing off goaltender Jacob Oster and landing at Vimanis’ skates. The 6’2” forward outmuscled Oshawa defenceman David Bedkowski for possession and flipped the puck past Oster for a 2-0 North Bay lead at 12:00.
North Bay cooked up a 3-0 lead a minute and a half later. Brice Cooke (3) got a loose puck at the top of the near-side circle and ripped a shot by Oster glove side at 13:30.
Even with the team getting three goals just over half-way through the period, and the Generals not recording a shot on net until there were six minutes left in the period, Coach Oulahen says he just kept reminding the team that they needed to get through the whole period for it to be meaningful.
“I’ve talked about the last five minutes being a little bit of a hiccup for us, and I think getting through that made us a confident team.”
The confidence was reignited as the Troops found the back of the net just before the intermission.
Van Steensel (6) got his first of the game at 18:22 on a beautiful dangle, getting around a defender and sliding the backhand under the pads to make it 4-0 for the home side.
“We want to bring everything we have at every game because these fans are special. We’re doing it for the guys in the room but it’s important to do it for the city to,” says Van Steensel, who finished the game with two goals and two assists, making it the third straight game in which a Battalion player has recorded that exact stat line with Vilmanis making it happen in game four and Nelson in game five.
“That just speaks to the depth of this team,” says Van Steensel.
“We need big players to step up, but up and down our lineup we have guys that have been good, and it’s nice to get the points personally but our whole lineup was good today.”
The second period started four-on-four with penalties assessed to Oshawa’s Owen Griffin and North Bay’s Paul Christopoulos for roughing after a big scrum occurred right at the end of the first.
Then 20 seconds into the second period Nelson got called for slashing in front of his own net. On the ensuing power play, Oshawa missed a wide-open net, with Lockhart not getting the shot off in time, allowing Mike McIvor to get back in position to stone the Oshawa forward and keep them off the scoreboard on the four-on-three Oshawa power play.
When Griffin and Christopoulos got out of the box, McIvor made another save down low to deny the Generals from scoring five-on-four.
“I liked the start of the second period, I’d like to bottle that up and take it into tomorrow,” says Oshawa Head Coach Derek Laxdal.
Oulahen says that sequence got the Battalion back into the game after he felt the team started the second period, “a little bit casual.”
“I didn’t like starting four-on-four and that kind of threw us off a bit, but Mikey was outstanding again. We’ve been talking a lot about both teams being such good hockey teams that when one team lets off a little bit, the other team gets 3-4 minutes of really strong sequences going that really change the momentum of the game. It’s hard to fight back until you either get a timeout, or get to the intermission and you can see that period to period in all six games. It's something we’ll have to be better at going into their rink tomorrow.”
McIvor made 35 saves for his 10th win of the post season, surpassing his 8-9-0-0 record in the regular season.
“I thought the young McIvor kid played great, he’s played great all series. For a guy that was probably the third goalie at the start of the season for them he’s done a really good job coming in for them. We have to be better at getting more traffic in his eyes. Give him a lot of credit, he’s been the backbone of the team so far,” says Laxdal.
McIvor’s counterpart, goaltender of the year, Oster (11-3-2-0) was chased from the net in the second after Battalion Captain Liam Arnsby (2) scored at 7:50 of the second for a 5-0 North Bay lead. Oster left after five goals allowed on 17 shots, giving way to Noah Bender to make his OHL playoff debut.
McIvor came up with two huge saves just under 12 minutes into the second period. First, he made a pad save off a shot in the high slot, with the rebound going right back to the stick of an Oshawa player set up between the hash marks and their shot was also stopped by McIvor, this time getting the puck to North Bay’s defence who cleared the zone. Moments later, McIvor stopped a Beckett Sennecke breakaway, where he stuck with Sennecke down the middle then pushed away the shot in close on the stick side.
Van Steensel (7) scored his second of the game at 16:40 to increase the North Bay lead to 6-0, before Ben Danford (3) got Oshawa’s lone goal of the game at 19:18 of the second.
A questionable play highlighted the opening five minutes of the third period. Oshawa’s Stuart Rolofs came off the bench and checked Jacob LeBlanc from behind inside the Oshawa zone, getting his stick right across the back of LeBlanc, blindsiding the Battalion defender. No call was made on the play and after being helped off the ice and assessed in the dressing room, LeBlanc returned to the game a few minutes later, getting a standing ovation as he came back onto the ice.
Justin Ertel scored arguably the nicest goal of the night. His 8th of the postseason was a highlight reel breakaway, which started by Ertel picking off a passe in the neutral zone and barreling down toward the Oshawa net before getting the shot past Bender for a 7-1 Troops lead. Jacob Therrien (3) at 16:12 rounded out the scoring.
The Battalion now has a chance to do something they have never done before, win a series after being down 3-0.
“I think our guys were motivated and excited and most importantly, just confident to come out and have that kind of start,” says Oulahen. “Forget about the result and what it was tonight, we have to treat that as a 1-0 game and start fresh tomorrow night.”
North Bay has played in the Eastern Conference finals four times since moving to North Bay and the Bobby Orr Trophy presentation has always taken place at Memorial Gardens. North Bay won game four at home in 2014, then lost in game 6 to Oshawa in 2015, lost in game four to Hamilton in 2022, and just last year, it was awarded in game 7 to Peterborough.
