Easton Rye may have played the best game of his OHL career on Saturday night against the North Bay Battalion. The second-year net-minder came into the contest with a career record of 1-7-0-0, a 5.34 Goals Against Average and 5.34 save percentage. That lone win came last year in on January 26, when he made 46 saves against the Knights in a 3-2 shootout victory in London.
Fast forward 10 months, and the Peterborough native put together another performance he wont soon forget, picking up a win in his hometown, backstopping the Petes to their first home win of the season in a 4-1 defeat of the North Bay Battalion.
Rye made 42 saves, allowing just the one goal, and gave the Petes their first win at home since March 13, 2024.
Rye was also an emergency backup for the North Bay Battalion in the playoffs last spring after Dom DiVincentiis' injury and when Charlie Larocque was unable to join the Troops due to conflicts with his EOJHL playoff schedule.
It was also the first time North Bay (10-10-2-0) has lost in Peterborough in almost three years. Their last defeat in Peterborough in the regular season came on November 25, 2021.
The loss snaps the Battalion two game winning streak and gives the Petes their second win on the year, improving to 2-16-1-4. However, the Petes have been playing better as of late, including a narrow 4-3 shootout loss in Kingston the night before, despite the scores not reflecting that progression.
And the Petes were catching the Battalion at a time when the injury bug seems to be getting worse. Already without Anthony Romani and Ihnat Pazii since early October, the Troops learned defenceman Kent Greer was going to be sidelined this week with an upper-body injury, and on Thursday, over age forward Andrew LeBlanc went down with an apparent lower body injury in the third, and did not return to the game after being helped off the ice.
Some reinforcements were needed, and the Battalion called up defenceman Tyson Rismond to slot in on the blue line. Rismond has been playing most of this season with the Haliburton County Huskies of the OJHL.
The Troops went with 11 forwards and seven defencemen, with Charlie Larocque (3-8-0-0) getting the start in goal.
The Petes opened the scoring 1:53 into the first period. Braydon McCallum (1) was wide open on the far side of the net. Three Battalion players moved over to the right side of the zone in an effort to get the puck away from Liam Ladds, but he slid the puck past all three Battalion of them and got it onto McCallum’s stick, and all he had to do was tap it in for the easy open net goal.
The Petes added to their lead at 7:44 when Gavin Bryant came over the blue line and sent a wrist shot towards the net, using several players as a screen. The plan worked perfectly as Larocque was unable to see the puck coming in and Bryant was rewarded with his third goal of the season for a 2-0 Petes advantage.
Larocque made a terrific pad save moments later when he stuck out the left side pad to rob the Petes of what looked like a sure goal, as they got a clean shot off from in tight.
Last time they met in Peterborough, the Petes had a 3-0 lead just 8:49 into the game, before the Battalion stormed back, scoring two goals in the first, tying the game in the second, and pulling away with two goals in the third for a 5-3 finish.
And it looked like this game was going to start trending in that direction again when at 15:44, the Battalion went on their second power play of the game, with Ladds sent into the box for high sticking. The Troops spent the majority of the two-minute advantage in the Petes end and cycled the puck very well, getting lots of shots off, but a lot of the shots were coming in high and goaltender Rye made a couple of key saves as well to keep the Battalion off the scoreboard and sending the Petes to the locker room with the 2-0 lead in hand through 20 minutes.
Battalion defenceman Zach Wilson was also making a home coming of sorts. Wilson played in six games last year with North Bay, none of them were in Peterborough, so it was a special moment to be back in his “hometown” rink for the just the second time in his OHL career. The Fenelon Falls, Ontario native, spoke to the OHL tonight broadcast during the second intermission and said, “I grew up really close to here and was at the PMC all the time, watching the Petes play. It’s an unreal feeling being back here and being on this ice was a dream of mine. I’ve got family and friends here and it’s just a great feeling to play in front of them,” says Wilson who had three shots on goal and a +1 rating in his first game in Peterborough, back on October 3rd.
“I think we’re doing well. We have to stick to our game, reset in the intermission, get pucks deep, track hard, and get back to playing Battalion hockey,” says Wilson.
At 14:05 the second period, the Petes saw their lead expand to 3-0 when Aiden Young (7) beat Larocque.
North Bay got one back when Shamar Moses unleashed a rocket to get the Battalion on the board at 17:21. Moses (4) jumped into the play just off the blue line, getting a pass from Jacob Therrien and he blasted the puck through traffic to make it 3-1. Moses has a point in four straight games and while that was his first goal since October 24, he has points in all but one game in the month of November, generating nine assists in those eight games.
The Battalion played the third period exactly how you’d expect them to, being down by two goals. They had plenty of puck possession, they had plenty of time in the offensive zone, and they put plenty of shots on net (outshooting the Petes 16-6 in the final frame), but Rye was just that much sharper than the Troops attack. An empty net goal by McCallum (2) at 18:30 put the game away.
The Battalion haven’t won three in a row since the first three games of the season, and two of those games were against Peterborough. With the loss, the Battalion are now 5-7-0-0 on the road with a tough matchup against Kingston on tap for tomorrow (Sunday) at 4:00 p.m.
