The North Bay Battalion(30-26-7-3) continued their final road trip of the season against the Kingston Frontenacs(35-22-6-3) Friday evening in a potential playoff preview matchup. However, on this night, the Battalion would find themselves on the wrong end of a 5-3 score.
If the OHL season were to end today, the Frontenacs sat in third place in the Eastern Conference with 79 points, whereas the Troops sat in sixth with 70 points. The way playoff matchups go, the first seeded team plays the eighth, second vs seventh, third takes on sixth and fourth vs fifth. A Battalion win also means neither the Ottawa 67’s or the Mississauga Steelheads would be able to catch the Troops for the sixth spot.
Not long into the first period, on a wraparound attempt with the puck squirting loose from Troops goaltender Julian Sime, Justin Pringle jammed his third home to give the Frontenacs a 1-0 lead.
A minute later however, a rush play led to Cliff Pu netting his 28th goal of the season and 12th in a Frontenacs uniform.
With five minutes remaining in the first, the American born Jake Henderson tried his best Paul Henderson 1972 Canada/Russia Summit Series goal impression. Henderson’s goal put the Battalion on the board, however, Kingston still led 2-1.
With less than a minute in the period, Brad Chenier rushed the puck into the Kingston end, and as he fell, passed the puck to Brandon Coe who made no mistake and shot it past Jeremy Helvig to tie the game at 2.
Much of the second period went by without much of a whimper goal scoring wise, although the two teams took a couple of ill-advised penalties. After the TV timeout however, Justin Brazeau threw the puck on net and Matthew Struthers crashed the front of the net to score his third goal in two games to give North Bay a 3-2 lead.
The Battalion’s lead was short-lived, as a couple of minutes later with the Frontenacs buzzing, Linus Nyman netted his 39th goal of the season off of a face-off to tie the game at 3.
Around the halfway point of the third period, Cliff Pu tapped in his second of the game and Kingston retakes the lead. Moments later, and fresh off of an Entry Level Contract signing with the Los Angeles Kings, Gabe Vilardi would net his 22nd goal in only 31 games this season.
The goal re-established the Fronts two-goal lead from the first period, this time at 5-3 and that would be the final score of the game.
The Battalion wrap up the regular season Sunday when they take on the Ottawa 67’s. You can listen live on Country 600 CKAT, or watch live on YourTV North Bay.
