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Battalion lose in Sudbury but win in the office on busy deadline day

We’re a younger team and when you make those mistakes they just compound so you have to figure out a way to lessen your mistakes
North Bay and Subury battle in front of the Troops net
North Bay and Subury battle in front of the Troops net. Photo by Sean Ryan.

A five-goal second period for the Sudbury Wolves was more than enough to hand the North Bay Battalion their 29th loss of the season on Friday night in Sudbury, and it extends the Troops losing streak to five straight losses.

Before the game, Sudbury forward Quinton Byfield was recognized by the team for being a part of Team Canada’s Gold Medal winning performance and the World Junior Championships, and on his first shift since winning gold in front of his home fans, Byfield came through the neutral zone, got by a defender on the left wing and played the puck right on to the stick of Chase Stillman in front of the North Bay net and Stillman didn’t waste the chance, redirecting the puck for his 10th goal of the season just 42 seconds into the game.

But Sudbury couldn’t score a second time on Cameron Lamour and the Battalion in the opening 20 minutes and Assistant Coach Scott Wray says despite the four shots on net he thought the team played well enough to still be in the game.

However, that changed in the second, “when we came out for the second it seemed like all our mistakes ended up in the back of the net. And it’s not just little mistakes, it’s big mistakes.”

Sudbury made it 2-0 20 seconds into the second period on a 5-on-3 power play that carried over from the first period. It was Byfield (24) finishing off a well designed passing play that included newcomer Matej Pekar and overage forward David Levin.

 

North Bay cut into the lead at 4:46 when Brandon Coe (15) scored a very similar goal to Stillman’s from the first period when he was set up at the side of the net and received a perfect pass from Liam Arnsby to cut the lead in half. But that was as close as it would get as the mistakes the Wray pointed out, started to pile up in the second period.

North Bay took a shot in the offensive zone that redirected off a skate and shot out to the neutral zone where it was picked up by Pekar, who set up Byfield for his second of the game at 7:04. Just over a minute later Stillman got his second of the game to make it 4-1 and there was no looking back for the Wolves.

“We’re a younger team and when you make those mistakes they just compound so you have to figure out a way to lessen your mistakes and keep the puck moving forward,” says Wray.

But over the last two games, North Bay hasn’t been able to do that as well as they had been in the first few weeks since the coaching change and as Wray points out the Battalion need to use the practice time they are getting with only two games this weekend and two games next weekend, to really work on the areas that need improvement.

And responding from a goal may be one of those areas as Sudbury were able to twice score back to back goals in less than two minutes within the same period.

After the Byfield and Stillman goals before the ten-minute mark, the Wolves got two more; one from David Levin (18) at 18:03 and then another from Adam Samuelsson (1) at 18:28.

To round out the scoring in the third period Macauley Carson (13) at 8:30 made it 7-1 before Alex Christopoulos (4) scored for North Bay at 14:07 to bring the Troops to within five goals. That was short-lived however as two minutes later Isaak Phillips (6) was the beneficiary of another brilliant play that started with Pekar over the blue line who made a drop pass to Byfield, who got room in the left side circle and found Phillips at the far post to bury the puck. The assists from Pekar and Byfield gave the pair a five-point night each to go along with Levin’s one goal and one assist and the top line of the Sudbury Wolves finished with a combined 12 points in one game.

North Bay and Sudbury will meet up five more times this season and the Troops are hopeful that some of the moves they have made this week will result in a more competitive effort going forward.

General Manager Adam Dennis was busy going into the trade deadline which ended at noon on Friday. He completed several deals that will bring in a couple of new faces to the franchise for next weeks games.

First was a deal with the Guelph Storm to send import player Martin Has to the western conference for three conditional OHL Priority Selection picks; a third rounder in 2022 and 2023 and a 15th round pick in 2022.

“It was a pretty unfortunate situation based on a league rule where he did have to take part in an OHL game before he had to be moved. The agent approached us about a week ago and made it clear that there was a small group of teams that he would report to with not much intention of coming to us next year," said Dennis. 

“As a group we decided that it was better to do what we can to help the franchise in the future,” he adds which is a complete turnaround from a franchise that previously has drafted Import Picks that either never ended up reporting to North Bay or just didn’t pan out in the OHL and the Troops would decide to cut their losses.  

Getting up to three picks for a player that spent his only night as a Battalion basically watching the team play from the bench is a better haul than most would have expected Dennis to get. He says they would’ve loved to have had Has as part of the team, but that wasn’t going to be a reality.

So with the focus still on the backend, they exchanged two picks with the London Knights to bring rookie defenceman Avery Winslow, who was drafted in the fifth round of the OHL priority selection in 2018 and has played 28 games with the Knights this year.

“I’m really excited for this player,” says Dennis.

“He takes pride in his own end and can defend very well because of his mobility. I think he can be a guy that does a lot of good things for us.”

And North Bay wasn’t done there, plucking a former NCAA committed player from the Niagara IceDogs in exchange for second-year forward Cam Peters. The player is Christian Stevens and Dennis says, “he was coveted by a lot of OHL teams coming in his OHL draft year. He probably gets drafted quite a bit higher if he’s not committed to an NCAA program, but he is committed to the North Bay Battalion.”

“He was set to play in the CJHL top prospects game with the Whitby Fury, but he’s going to be coming up here instead,” says Dennis.

It was certainly one of the busiest trade deadlines in recent memory for the North Bay Battalion who are showing a new focus on stockpiling picks while still acquiring young pieces as they continue to piece together this rebuild.


Matt Sookram

About the Author: Matt Sookram

Matthew Sookram is a Canadore College graduate. He has lived and worked in North Bay since 2009 covering different beats; everything from City Council to North Bay Battalion.
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