Battalion defenceman Marcus McIvor gets in the way of a shot by Generals forward Michael Dal Colle. PHOTO BY TOM MARTINEAU.
It’s down to a best-of-three.
Two of the most physical, hard hitting clubs in the OHL will play at least two more games in this series; or possibly three games in the next four nights if the series goes the distance and needs to be decided in game 7 on Monday night in Oshawa.
The Battalion let one slip away on Wednesday night as the Generals got their first playoff win at Memorial Gardens in two years with a 3-2 win to even the Eastern Conference Final and force the Troops to win another game in Oshawa if they want to take this series.
While Generals sniper Michael Dal Colle netted his first goal of the series Wednesday, the Battalion top line of Nick Paul-Zach Bratina-Michael Amadio is still looking to find its top gear.
Paul only has one goal and no assists in the conference final, while Amadio has been held to a pair of assists and Bratina has 1 goal and 1 assist.
While the second line of Kujawinski-Henriksson-Moutrey did account for the OT game winner in game 3, most of their production in this series came late in the game one 6-1 victory.
Battalion Head Coach Stan Butler isn’t worried about the lack of production from his top two lines. He’s more concerned that they pay attention to detail moving forward.
“Everyone has a role to play and sometimes with players if you aren’t scoring at the level that they would like to score or as coaches, we would like them to score, then it’s very important they do all the little things well like block shots, get pucks out,” said Butler during the game four post game press conference.
“They do all the type of things. I’ve always believed as a coach you really get the players to take care of all the little things and then the big things will take care of themselves.”
The Generals also found a way to make Jake Smith look mortal on Wednesday night. A solid power play that included a lot of traffic in front of the Battalion netminder paid dividends for the Generals.
“We’ve got to find ways to shut their power play down, you have to give them credit they did some simple stuff on the power play, putting pucks to the net to get tipped and that’s what you need to do when you have two, big, strong teams,” said Butler.
“We were trying to be to fancy and at the end of the day it doesn’t matter how it gets across the goal line as long as it gets there.”
Fan Bus Frenzy
Generals security staff will once again likely have their confiscation bags ready as another two busloads of Battalion fans will be heading to Oshawa Friday night.
At the last game at General Motors Centre, Battalion fans had noisemakers and even cameras confiscated.
The goods were apparently returned after the game.
It was a nice touch in game one of the series when the Troops saluted all the Battalion fans and the Marcus McIvor Whitby cheering section after the 6-1 win.
