North Bay native, Ken Appleby, demonstrates why he is one of the best goalies in the OHL by stopping 25 of 26 shots to lead to Oshawa Generals over the North Bay Battalion. PHOTO by: Tom Martineau
Ken Appleby had something to prove Thursday night and boy did he deliver. The North Bay prospect lost to the Battalion last season during the playoffs in his only appearance at the Gardens. Oshawa was eventually swept by North Bay.
This season marks a fresh start for Appleby, who recorded his tenth straight win thanks to 2-1 win against the Battlalion.
“It’s a great feeling. Lots of family and friends tonight. They don’t get to see me too often so it was good to get a win for them.”
Appleby made back to back breakaway saves in the second period by first denying Miles Liberati and then Kyle Moore. He also came up big in the opening minutes of the third period and then got a fortunate bounce after a blast from Alex Henriksson went through his pads and trickled off the post.
“They got a couple shots off late in the third, but our defense did a great job all night blocking shots and making my job easy out there.”
Despite being outplayed in the first period, Brendon Miller got the game going by showing great patience with the puck and finding an open cage while Appleby was down. However, the Generals tied the game on the power play after North Bay was assessed a bench minor. Oshawa then put the game on ice with less than five minutes to go in the game as Tobias Lindberg roofed one past Jake Smith.
“It was a very close game between two pretty equal teams," shared head coach Stan Butler. "Again, we’re close in these games. I mean the two games we lost in regulation we had a chance to win both and we lost in the last five minutes. It was one of those games we’re both teams had chances and we didn’t capitalize on ours.”
The Battalion now hit the road and play back to back games beginning Friday against Barrie and Mississauga.
“We are playing a lot of the top teams in the league and that is the way I look at it and we just have to find ways to get points from those teams and if we want to be a team that is considered a contender and not a pretender, then we need to find ways to get points against those teams,” said Butler.
