Heading into Friday’s game against the Barrie Colts, the Battalion had been rolling. Three straight wins, outscoring their opponents 22-7 and keeping pace with the teams at the top of the conference. With a big divisional matchup looming on Sunday, the Battalion had an opportunity to put themselves just one point behind Central Division and Eastern Conference leading Sudbury, ahead of their meeting with the Wolves at Memorial Gardens. “All” they had to do was pick up a win against another divisional rival, the Barrie Colts, who have proven to be a tough opponent for North Bay all season long.
The Troops were 1-2-1-0 against the Colts in their first four meetings with North Bay dropping the first three head-to-head matchups, getting outscored a combined 11-6 before winning the last matchup 7-2 on January 28th. However, the Battalion couldn’t repeat the results from the last meeting and a late goal by Riley Patterson was the difference maker in the Colts 4-2 victory over the Battalion. Battalion goaltender Mike McIvor was being pressured by the Colts attack and managed to make a couple of big stops, but with the puck wedged underneath his pads after a shot from Cole Beaudoin, his momentum was carrying him backwards and Patterson poked at his pads, getting the puck free. Patterson just tapped the puck over the line to put the Colts ahead at 15:13 and it would hold up as the game winning goal, with the victory sealed by a Beau Jelsma (34) empty net goal that gave the Colts captain a hat trick.
The Colts opened the scoring at 14:24 courtesy of Jelsma netting his 32nd of the year.
The Battalion found themselves playing shorthanded four times in the opening twenty minutes, including a double minor to Wyatt Kennedy for high sticking. But the Troops managed to kill off all of those, keeping the Barrie offense in check in those situations through the first twenty minutes.
The parade to the penalty box continued in the second period with players on both teams taking turns to sit in the sin bin. Twice within the opening five minutes there were 4-on-4 situations as teams gained a power play, before taking a penalty to negate that power play prematurely, but again, both teams penalty kills did their job, not letting the opponents power play to do any damage.
That is until the later stages of the second with the Battalion playing short-handed for the seventh time, the Colts were finally able to take advantage when Jelsma used his speed to break into the zone passed the defensive and drove the right side of the zone. He cut in front of the net and tucked the puck around the right-side pad of Battalion goaltender Mike McIvor to finish off a dynamic individual effort for his second of the game at 17:26.
The Battalion got on the board early in the third when they took advantage of a power play opportunity of their own. After Dalyn Wakely won the offensive zone draw to Anthony Romani, he fed the puck to Ty Nelson (15) along the blue line and he ripped the one-timer over the shoulder of Colts Goaltender Sam Hillebrandt and just under the crossbar to get the Troops to within a goal, making the score 2-1 Barrie.
At 7:24 the Battalion tied the game 2-2, taking advantage of a misplay by the Colts in the defensive zone. Romani had the puck under the near side circle and fanned on a shot but it trickled off his stick into the slot passed a Colts defenseman and onto the backhand of Van Steensel who promptly put a shot on net, using another Colts player as a screen and Hillebrandt was unable to see the puck as it got by him. Van Steensel (35) now has a goal in five straight games and has recorded at least a point in every contest since February 3rd. That gives the 2020 fourth round draft pick of the Battalion 12 goals and 26 points during his current 13 game point streak.
The Battalion were 1/5 on the power play and 6/7 on the penalty kill and outshot the Colts 38-35 overall, including 18-8 in the third period. The game was played in front of 4230 fans at the Sadlon Arena.
The loss for North Bay (33-20-6-2) means their meeting tomorrow afternoon against Sudbury (35-19-4-3) can only get the Battalion to within a point of the top spot, instead of pushing them ahead of the Wolves for the division lead. With just six games remaining for each team after Sunday and no further head-to-head contests in the regular season, it’s not a stretch to say a shot at the division title could be on the line as the highway 17 rivals go toe-to-toe at Memorial Gardens. Although, the Wolves do square off against Oshawa twice, and the Battalion will see Brantford once and Mississauga once within those final six games, giving the Battalion some big opportunities to take points directly away from teams who are all trying to secure home ice advantage.
