Eight wins in your past ten games at this point of the Ontario Hockey League season should be more than enough to give you confidence that you may be the cream of the crop, slowly rising to the top.
But as Qui-Gon Jin said in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace “There’s always a bigger fish,” and the Troops are realizing how true that statement is as no matter what they have done this year, no matter how many winning streaks they have put together or how many times they go in to a game and seemingly dominate the opponent, the top of the Eastern Conference has just felt like a roulette wheel continually landing on other teams taking over that top spot in the conference.
Just as the Battalion finally chased down the Sudbury Wolves and caught up with the surprising Brantford Bulldogs, they are now staring up at an Oshawa Generals team that was 15-15-3-1 on January 3rd after a 1-0 loss to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, with not many pundits picking Oshawa to storm to the top of the standings.
Funny what a few good weeks can do for you in this league as Oshawa have lost just four times in regulation since then and haven’t dropped a single point since Feb 25th – a streak of nine straight wins.
So here is North Bay once again doing their job, picking up wins, defeating the teams they need to and getting out of Peterborough with a 7-4 victory, and while those two points puts them at the top of the Central Division, they remain three points behind the Oshawa Generals for the Eastern Conference title, with four games remaining on their schedule and one game in hand on the Generals.
It shows how tight this conference has been all season, and how consistent North Bay has been as well as they have never lost more than two regulation games in a row all year and the fact that other teams are wining at a similar pace, it makes the performances by the Battalion night in and night so much more important.
Performances from Sandis Vilmanis who seemingly comes up with a big goal every game and that continued against the Petes on Saturday.
At 5:33 of the first, Vilmanis drove to the net and stationed himself at the glove side post of Liam Sztuska and waited for Jacob LeBlanc to send the puck from the boards directly on to his stick and all Vilmanis had to do was get a piece of it to direct it over the goal line.
That gives Vilmanis 34 goals on the year and 24 goals in 26 games since coming to North Bay. He’s also scored in three straight games and has 13 points in his last 10 games played.
There’s also been the performance of Anthony Romani who became just the third player in North Bay Battalion franchise history to score 50 goals in a season, and eclipse 100 points.
While his 50th goal lacked some flash (an easy tap in on Thursday against Brantford), he sure made up for it with his 51st against the Petes.
Romani got into the attacking zone on a short breakaway, and he utilized all the space he was given by going through the far side circle, lifting his skate, before giving a shoulder fake and pulled the shot to the glove side to beat Sztuska and give the Battalion a 2-1lead at 14:09.
Romani finished the night with four points (2G-2A) and his 104 total points leads the league and puts him second all-time in goals and points in a single season.
The Battalion are also getting great performances no matter who’s been minding the net. Mike McIvor got the start with number one goalie Dom DiVincentiis getting the night off and McIvor came up with a huge save near the end of the first period.
The Petes got a chance in close while shorthanded and took a shot that went off the body of McIvor and redirected right to the stick of Ryder McIntyre who immediately sent it back toward McIvor. The Battalion goaltender was already in the butterfly position and had to dive at the puck, throwing up his glove in desperation to stop the point-blank chance, making a highlight reel stop in the process. McIvor would go on to make 29 saves and improve his record to 8-9-0-0.
And what else can be said about the performance from Romani’s linemates on the top line as both Owen Van Steensel and Dalyn Wakely made their way onto the scoresheet again.
Van Steensel scored a shorthanded goal by finishing off a perfect passing play from the Captain Liam Arnsby, who slid the puck right through the slot behind the defence and Van Steensel whipped it towards the net, giving Sztuska no chance to stop the shot and put the Troops in front 3-1 at 9:13 of the second period.
Wakely’s goal also came in the second, at 13:33. Wakely won the puck out of the corner and flipped it to Romani in the far side circle and made his way to the front of the net. Romani sent it back to Wakely who quickly deked out Sztuska, sliding the puck under his pads for his 36th of the year.
It marks the 37th time this season that all three guys on the top line have recorded at least one point in a game.
Going into this game, the Petes found themselves at the opposite end of the conference but still with a mathematical chance of sneaking into the playoffs. With the mentality that they were in a must win game, they came out in the third looking to close the gap and in the opening five minutes the Petes were on the power play. But the Troops penalty kill was up to the task, blocking several shots from the point while not allowing the Petes to ever get comfortable between the hash marks.
The Petes kept the pressure on following the man advantage and Tommy Purdeller (13) took a shot in the slot that beat McIvor for Purdeller’s second goal of the game after scoring at 19:52 of the second.
Wakely responded for the Troops, finding a loose puck in front of the net and slapping it five-hole for his 37th of the year at 11:15 to put North Bay back ahead by two 5-3.
The Petes regained the man advantage about a minute later and cycled the puck around the zone, getting it to Braydon McCallum (18) on the far side who shot the puck past McIvor and it was back to a one goal lead, 5-4 at 13:19.
The Battalion responded again with a power play goal of their own, courtesy of Van Steensel (39) at 15:16 to give the Battalion a 6-4 lead.
Romani (52) scored an empty net goal to put the game away. Wakely, sitting on two goals brought the puck into the zone and while the Your TV broadcast stated Wakely could’ve gone for his first career hat trick, the third year centerman has previously recorded a three-goal game, back on December 8th, 2023, against Mississauga. Regardless, Wakely didn’t go for the goal with a Petes defender in front of him and instead, slid it across the zone to a wide-open Romani for the put away.
Wakely also finished with a four-point night, Van Steensel was right behind his linemates with three points and a game high +5 rating on the evening. Defencemen Tnias Mathurin and Paul Christopoulos held their own on the backend finishing +4 and +3 respectively.
The Troops got to exact a bit of sweet revenge as the loss meant they had eliminated the Petes from post-season contention, a year after being eliminated by Peterborough in the Eastern Conference finals.
The Battalion went 1/3 on the power play and 4/5 on the penalty kill and outshot the Petes 46-33 in front of 3875 at the Peterborough Memorial Centre.
The Battalion will go for the weekend sweep as they get set to visit the Frontenacs in Kingston on Sunday afternoon.
