Make it two in a row and five wins in their last six games as North Bay picked up another win on the road, beating the Sarnia Sting 5-1 on Sunday afternoon to continue their best stretch of the season. North Bay are now 23-28-4-0 and coupled with an Ottawa loss at home to Brantford, the Troops have opened up a four point lead on the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 13 games left to play in the regular season.
Mike McIvor was back in net for the Battalion, coming off a solid 31 save performance in a 4-1 win over Flint on Friday evening. Since the new year, McIvor has given up three goals or less in 11 of his last 13 games played going into Sunday afternoon’s tilt against Sarnia.
He’s got a 2.49 Goals Against Average and .910 save percentage over that stretch and will improve on those numbers after making 33 saves on 34 shots against the Sting.
Back in their former stomping grounds, the LeBlanc twins, Andrew and Jacob, combined for two goals and an assist, paving the way for the Troops victory.
“This was a big win for us, we’re in a really big playoff push here and it was good to come out on top,” said Andrew LeBlanc when he spoke to the OHL tonight broadcast after the game.
At one point it looked like Sarnia could’ve been their last stop in their OHL careers. The twins from Port Colbourne, Ontario, were originally drafted by the Kitchener Rangers in the 2020 OHL Priority Selection. They spent a year there, before going to Niagara and then landing in Sarnia ahead of the 2023-24 regular season. Both players were having good success with the Sting and were fitting in well with a young Sarnia group whose best days were still ahead of them.
But at the 2024 deadline, their services were required by a team with a need for some veteran talent to round out the edges of their lineup; the North Bay Battalion. Along with Sandis Vilmanis, Andrew and Jacob went from Sarnia to North Bay and played key roles in helping the Troops get to a third straight Eastern Conference final last spring.
They’ve contributed 25 goals, and 106 points combined, with Jacob having a career-year points wise this season, setting a new career high in goals (8), assists (36) and points (43), the second most points on the team this season.
He got things started for North Bay on Sunday afternoon scoring his eighth of the season just 1:30 into the contest. LeBlanc stripped a Sarnia player of the puck right in front of the Sting net. LeBlanc then spun around and fired a shot past Sarnia goaltender Evan Maillet (6-9-1-2) to put the Troops on the board 1-0.
Nick Wellenreiter dropped the gloves against Hughston Hurt at 3:46. The fight lasted less than 30 seconds but stemmed from the two players jawing at each other behind the net in the Sarnia zone, and tempers flared quickly leading to the fist fight.
Nothing more of note transpired in the opening 20 minutes and Shamar Moses was asked during the intermission about the early lead. “Going into a super long road trip, with two games in the USA, every game for us is huge right now, especially with this playoff push we're trying to make. To get that early lead in the first it’s huge for the boys and we're going to try to carry the momentum,” says Moses. “I didn't think that was our best period to be honest, I think we kind of came out sluggish and that's something we've been trying to avoid, so that'll be something we'll look to fix.”
It took about half the period, but the Battalion fixed it, like Moses predicted.
First, Maillet robbed the Battalion of a goal in the second period right after the Troops killed off a penalty. Nolan Laird was in the sin bin for hooking and as the penalty expired, he got control of the puck as he stepped out of the box and brought it into the Sarnia zone. He fed a perfect pass across the slot to Ethan Procyszyn, but Procyszyn’s shot got stopped when Maillet went across to his left side and sprawled out to make a huge glove save, keeping his team to within a one goal deficit.
Shortly after, the Sting were back on the power play when Lirim Amidovsky was called for interference at 7:37. Despite the Sting getting four shots on their man advantage, McIvor kept them at bay, turning aside each of those Sarnia chances.
Those saves proved to be an even bigger deal as the Battalion piled on a couple more goals later in the period. The first came from Ihnat Pazii (4) at 12:27. Amidovski got the play started by sending a pass from below the Sarnia goal line up high to defenceman Brayden Turley above the left side circle. Turley smartly slid the puck across to the right-side circle to a wide-open Pazzi, who fired in the one timer for a 2-0 North Bay lead.
Pazii is starting to become a bigger focal point for North Bay’s offense. After missing over two months of action, he started slowly, recording no points in his first six games back. He picked up his first post-injury-point on January 26, an assist at home vs Sudbury and over the last six games (including Sunday’s game) Pazzii has four goals and seven points.
At 13:34 Andrew LeBlanc (11) made it 3-0 with a power play marker. The Troops went 1 for 3 on the man advantage in the game. Jacob Therrien fed a pass across the top of the blue paint going left to right and on the other side was LeBlanc, connecting on a one-timer that tickled the twine.
Despite the 3-0 lead, the Battalion couldn’t afford to take the Sting lightly. Sarnia were one of the hottest teams in the league heading into the month of February. Between December 13 through February 1, the Sting went 9-3-1-1. But since that point they have struggled to a 1-5-1-1 mark. However, their lone win in that stretch was on Friday night against Windsor, when they overcame a 5-2 deficit in the last nine minutes of the third period to win 6-5 in overtime.
Looking for a second straight comeback win, the Sting got on the board on a short-handed goal by Daylen Moses (8) at 15:09.
Just over a minute later, Wellenreiter restored the Troops three goal advantage by driving home a rebound of a shot from Jacob LeBlanc at the point. The shot went off the body of Maillet and right towards a wide open Wellenreiter, and the Waterdown, Ontario native put in his ninth goal of the season and third point of the weekend.
North Bay got the lone goal of the third period when Parker Vaughn (8) scored in the empty net at 16:39 for his fourth goal as a member of the Battalion to round out the scoring.
“We’re in a playoff mentality right now,” Andrew LeBlanc said after the game. “Every shift, every period is just a battle, and we need two points every night.”
North Bay have one more leg to complete on this grueling seven day, four game, two country road trip that will end in Sault Ste. Marie with a matchup against the Greyhounds on Tuesday. This is the rescheduled game that was cancelled earlier in the year due to hazard weather conditions.
But at this rate, the Battalion seem to be enjoying life on the road.
“It's awesome to get the team together and bond. We went to a movie yesterday, and it’s those little things like being on the bus together, especially with this young group and as we come up together over the next few years we’re working on building that bond and trying to pick up as many points as we can,” said Moses.
After Tuesday’s game, the Troops will play eight of their last 12 games of the season at home where they will also look to pick up points and improve on their 11-12-3-0 record at Boart Longyear Memorial Gardens.