The game was close until a three-goal outburst during four-on-four play in the third broke things open. The Sudbury Wolves scored three times in the span of 1:23, paving the way for an 8-3 win for the Wolves (23-17-5-0) in Sudbury over the North Bay Battalion (17-24-3-0) on Friday night. The win snaps a five-game losing streak for the Wolves (with four of those games coming on the road), while the Battalion have picked up just two points in their last three games.
All three of those goals came before the third was even three minutes old, during a coincidental minor with the Battalion’s Bronson Ride and the Wolve’s Nathan Villeneuve each in the box for roughing.
While they were in the box, Kocha Delic (21), Alex Pharand (16) and Quentin Musty (14) all found the back of the net, expanding their lead from 4-3, to 7-3 and virtually putting the game away.
The goal from Delic was off a deflection from a point shot from Henry Mews at 1:36. Pharand’s goal was thanks in large part to the effort from Keiron Walton who went coast-to-coast, putting on the breaks behind the Battalion net, spun away from a defender and fed the puck right in front to Pharand who redirected it in at 2:01. Musty’s marker at 2:59 came together when the San Jose Sharks prospect was left wide open in the slot and he got a clean pass from behind the net from Delich and made good on the reception.
It was a tough stretch in net for North Bay goaltender Jack Lisson (2-3-0-0) who was coming off his best performance of his young OHL career. The Oakville, Ontario native made a career high 41 saves against the Wolves just five days ago at Memorial Gardens in a 3-2 win for the Troops.
But it’s very hard to fault Lisson on not just these goals, but all eight of the goals the Wolves scored came when their goals scorers were either left alone, or got in behind the defence and he was hung out to dry.
That’s two very tough losses on back-to-back nights for a Troops team that started the week just a point back of the Ottawa 67’s for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. But the Battalion haven’t been able to creep any closer, coming off a 3-2 loss to Brantford at home on Thursday, followed by the defeat at the hands of the Wolves. The silver lining being that Ottawa also lost on Thursday (5-3 in Barrie). They will play in Owen Sound on Saturday and Guelph on Sunday, while the Battalion get ready to host Niagara on Sunday afternoon.
Before they get there, they’ll want to review some of the positives from this game as it was just a one goal game in the third until that Sudbury outburst.
After Ondrej Molnar (8) opened the scoring with the only goal in the opening 20 minutes of the game at 2:44, the Battalion bounced back with a good second period, outshooting the Wolves 15-9. While they trailed 4-2 going into the third, the Battalion were a second away from getting to the third down by just a goal.
It started with Zach Wigle (9) tying the game at 2:17 of the second period off a really nice play by the whole line. Parker Vaughn brought the puck into the zone, went down low, spun, and got the pass to Andrew LeBlanc, who basically did the same move from inside the circle, and found Wigle wide open in the slot.
Jack Zillotto scored his first career OHL goal at 12:50 to put the Wolves back out in front 2-1, but not before the LeBlanc (8) retaliated on the power play at 15:57 to even things up 2-2.
At 16:36 Villeneuve (21) regained the lead for Sudbury when he scored a breakaway goal while the Wolves were shorthanded. He got control of the puck at the blue line and took off with Ryder Greer right on his tale. Greer couldn’t get the puck off him, but both players went hard into Lisson and the contact took away any chance of Lisson making a save.
With the score 3-2, the Wolves were on the power play within the last minute of the period and Chase Coughlin (17) deflected a puck in after running the goaltender, Lisson. He made a beeline towards the North Bay goalie from below the circle and lowered his shoulder in what looked like an attempt to make contact with the head of Lisson.
See the play here: https://x.com/Sudbury_Wolves/status/1885506814382412215
The play went under a review and even though the EastLink commentary crew did their best to act like there was nothing wrong with Coughlin’s actions, the officials decided to give Coughlin a two-minute minor for roughing, but the goal still stood to give the Wolves a 4-2 lead after 40 minutes of play.
The Battalion made things interesting out of the gate when Jacob LeBlanc sent a pass from his blue line to the Sudbury blue line, right onto the stick of his brother Andrew who just got passed the Wolves d-men and got a shot on net. Wolves Goaltender Nate Krawchuck (17-11-5-0) made the initial stop on the LeBlanc shot, but Ethan Procyszyn (26) managed to tap in the loose puck right after the play for his league leading 15th power play goal of the season. Procyszyn finished the night with a goal and an assist, while Andrew LeBlanc had three points (1-2-3).
The goal from Procyszyn came just nine seconds into the third period to cut the Sudbury lead to 4-3, but that’s when the dam burst and the Wolves piled it on. Rounding out the scoring was Villeneuve (22) getting his second goal of the game at 9:46. The Battalion were outshot 43-32. They went 2 for 6 on the power play and 3 for 4 on the penalty kill.
That closes the chapter on January, 2025 for the Troops who went 4-6-0-0 in their ten games in the month, posting a sub .500 record in January for the first time in three seasons:
7-2-1-1 in 2024,
8-2-1-0 in 2023,
4-4-2-0 in 2022,
2-8-1-0 in 2021.
With just two months remaining in the regular season the Battalion are still in the hunt for a postseason berth, but they’ll need to start taking advantage of their games in hand and the losses of their direct competition.