Put the three-game slide into the rear view mirror as the North Bay Battalion (17-23-3-0) pick up a big come-from-behind 3-2 victory over their division rivals, the Sudbury Wolves (22-17-5-0). Jaccob Therrien (7) put in the decisive goal at 11:52 of the third period, breaking the 2-2 deadlock. It’s their first win since the 2-0 victory over Barrie on January 16th.
The play was set up by Shamar Moses, with a seeing eye pass from behind the Battalion blue line right onto the tape of Therrien, who then out muscled a Sudbury defender one-on-one, to get positioning near the glove side hash marks, before flipping a shot that went over Wolves goaltender Nate Krawchuck (16-11-5-0) to get the Battalion ahead.
Battalion Head Coach Ryan Oulahen says he had a good feeling about that play when Therrien got the inside positioning.
“You need somebody to make the really good feed to make it all happen and Shamar did that, and, I don’t know if you want to look at the stats, but just over Therrien’s years here, he likes to score against the Wolves,” said Oulahen post game.
The stats show that Therrien has 9-5-14 in 19 career games against Sudbury. But Therrien might not have had the chance to score the game winning goal, had it not been for a huge second period by the Troops, punctuated by Nolan Lairds game tying goal at 3:19.
The play started when Ihnat Pazzi got control of the puck in the North Bay end and started a play down the ice where he flipped it up to Nick Wellenreiter at the Sudbury blue line. Wellenreiter wasted no time in setting up Laird on a cross-zone pass. Laird took a few steps in toward the net and blasted the puck high blocker side for his seventh goal of the season tying the game 2-2.
“In all the past couple of weeks, we've been preaching about building more offense and I just thought we did a great job driving the net that whole shift,” he says. “Pazii did a great job kicking it out and I tried to balance myself with Wellenreiter, making sure he'd have a good pass and then I found the net.”
“He's your prototypical glue guy,” Oulahen says about Laird.
“In his role, he's got to kill penalties, he's got to do some of that grunt stuff, he sticks up for teammates and then in the room, he's the music guy. He brings an awesome presence to the team because he's willing to do everything.”
Laird, the Port Perry, Ontario native, has two goals in his last four games and says it was great to be able to beat the Wolves on home ice for just the second time this season.
“I feel like every game, especially at home against these guys, we always have more energy, and we wanted to come out in the third and take it home.”
Laird’s goal followed a goal from overage forward Zach Wigle (who had one goal and two assists in seven games against Sudbury while playing with the Colts this season). Sudbury wasn’t careful with the puck in their own zone, carrying it behind the net and the Battalion got some pressure on the defence, forcing a turnover right in front of the crease. That’s where Wigle picked up the puck and sent a shot on net with the goaltender screened. The puck went in glove side for to get the Battalion on the board, 2-1, with Wigle getting his eighth goal of the season at 1:53.
Jack Lisson (2-2-0-0) got the start in net, the second time he’s faced Sudbury this season after making his Battalion debut in Sudbury on January 3, 2025. He picked up the loss that night in a 4-1 defeat, allowing three goals on 25 shots against. But on Sunday afternoon at Memorial Gardens, Lisson turned away 41 shots, and earning first star of the game honours.
“I think it's a really good sign with the goaltender when your team gets down and it doesn’t phase him, he just had that mentality of making that next save to keep it close,” says Oulahen. “He got us through the first and then we were able to kind of reset.”
The Battalion trailed 2-0 after the first as they seemed a little anxious to start the game. Sudbury forced the Troops to make several turn overs inside the North Bay zone in the opening three minutes and were penalized for too many men at 3:40.
On the ensuing power play, Henry Mews sent a pass from the top of the zone on the left side, directly to the tape of the stick of Quentin Musty in the right-side circle. Musty ripped a one-timer for his 13th goal of the season at 4:32.
Just over a minute later Nathan Villeneuve raced down the right-wing side, dropped a pass back for Ondrej Molnar who put the puck on net. Lisson made the initial save, but the rebound went right back to Villeneuve (20) just above the goal line and managed to squeak the puck through the blocker side of Lisson.
Lisson came up with some big stops as the period went on, including stopping Walton on a one-on-one with making a blocker save 9:30 into the contest.
In the second, Lisson was tested again, after the Laid goal made it 2-2, Sudbury countered with a couple of break away chances. On the first attempt, Musty missed a shot 14 minutes in, shooting wide blocker side, and immediately after, Villeneuve came in on a breakaway and he tried to deke out Lisson, carrying the puck to his right, but Lisson stayed with him and Villeneuve put the puck into the pads of Lisson for a big stop at 14:21.
He turned away 14 shots in the third period.
This was the first game all season in which Sudbury failed to record a point when leading after the first period. The Wolves were 14-0-1-0 in those situations, and 5-0-4-0 when they were tied with their opponent after 40 minutes of play.
“Coming into this game the only points that we took from them this season, was an overtime win (North Bay winning 6-5 at home on Nov 17), so to get that one in regulation here, it’s certainly good sign for us,” says Oulahen. “We’ve got them twice more this year and those are going to be big games. I think it was important for us to get some good results today.”
With Ottawa’s loss to Saginaw on Sunday afternoon, the Battalion end the weekend just one point back of the 67’s for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and they have a pair of games in hand as well, but there are no let-ups on the schedule.
The Brantford Bulldogs (26-16-4-0) are in town on Thursday, before the Troops head to Sudbury for a rematch against the Wolves on Friday night, the weekend ends with the Niagara IceDogs visiting Memorial Gardens on Sunday afternoon and the IceDogs are 3-0-0-0 against the Troops this year.
