Adversity came early in the playoffs for the North Bay Battalion.
With the series on the line, the Battalion held a 5-1 lead late in the second period in game six against the Steelheads. In the final minutes of the second, the Trout pushed and scored two late goals to make it 5-3 after 40 minutes.
Battalion star goaltender Dom DiVincentiis had a message after that period as he hoped to inspire his teammates to hold the lead and close out the series.
"I gave a quick little talk to the team and just trying to be the leader with some playoff experience," said the Winnipeg Jets prospect.
"Last year we found out how teams try to respond after a late period push. For me my message was strictly we gave up two late goals, they are going to come out with a lot of energy, and we better be ready to match that and shut them down so I think we did a great job of that in the third and obviously we managed to get that series over with and it was a great opponent to have in the first round and they gave us a run for our money but I think we were prepared for them in the third and the result proved it."
The Troops split two games at home and two more at Mississauga, winning the first and losing the second in each case, before taking a 3-2 lead in games with a 6-0 victory at Memorial Gardens last Friday night. The North Bay squad then bounced seventh-place Mississauga with a 5-4 road win Sunday before a busload of North Bay fans who out-cheered the local Trout supporters.
Ryan Oulahen, the Battalion head coach, was impressed at how his Troops were able to lock it down and play a solid final period to knock out the Trout.
“It’s important to go through adverse moments, which we certainly saw in our first series, and that just kind of ramps up the attention to detail,” he said during Wednesday's media conference.
“We’ve got a saying in our room, ‘It’s that fine-print time of year,’ where the print gets smaller and the attention to detail gets a little bit more dialled in.”
Ty Nelson, Battalion star defenceman, echoes the coaches' sentiments and believes that the Steelheads series will help them as they face the Colts.
"For us, it was kind of a reset that we had to do and just kind of dialling everything in, attention to detail, just kind of clean up our systems-wise," said the Seattle Kraken prospect.
"I think that is something we really took into account there coming through this series and obviously we know that Mississauga was a fantastic team, they gave us a good run, and now Barrie is a really skilled team as well so we have to be even more detailed and dialled into our systems so that is something that we really took a lot of time this week to work on and that we are excited about."
“The good thing is when we did have a setback, we responded the next game,” said Oulahen, whose club plays host to Barrie in the opener of their best-of-seven conference semifinal at 7 p.m. Friday.
“That was encouraging. We have a lot of experience in our room, but there are also some guys that that was their first time getting it. I think that first round is always the toughest to get your game back up to where it needs to be, and then you kind of continue to roll from there.”
The Colts are led by a pair of overage NHL prospects who have driven their offence. Evan Vierling led the way with 95 points this season followed by Ethan Cardwell who finished with 90 points.
Of course, LA Kings prospect Brandt Clarke brings a tremendous amount of offence with him from the back end as he recorded 61 points in only 31 games after being returned to the Colts from his NHL team.
Former North Bay Trapper Connor Punnett has had a breakout season on the back end for the Colts netting 48 points and being recognized in three categories of the OHL coaches poll including hardest shot, best body checker, and best shot blocker.
