Luke Burghardt and Justin Brazeau each had a goal and an assist as the North Bay Battalion beat the Oshawa Generals 3-2 at Memorial Gardens.
It may have been a one-goal game, but it was far from close on the ice. The Troops dominated the attack in the first period and got the offense rolling late in the second when Brazeau potted his 33rd of the season.
“The first one is huge obviously, you get the first one and they start going in and we just built off that,” said Luke Burghardt. He credits the chemistry of the top line with Justin Brazeau and Matthew Struthers, who also chipped in with two assists.
“They are the go-to guys for our team, they have been all year. The old attitude is that your best players need to be your best players and tonight they were,” added Battalion head coach Stan Butler.
Jake Henderson then gave the Battalion some breathing room midway through the third as he tipped a point shot to give the Battalion a 3-1 lead.
However, his marker would end up being the game-winner after the Generals scored in the final minute.
“They have a really good goalie, we had to get some more shots on net and we did that. The first goal is always huge, we opened the floodgates and I believed that happened tonight and we had more goals than them and it worked out,” shared Henderson.
In the end, the Battalion fired a total of 47 shots on Generals netminder Kyle Keyser.
It’s North Bay’s first win versus Oshawa after being blanked in their first meeting and losing in a shootout the second time around.
“I think we just put a full game together. Against Oshawa this year, I thought we played well at times and dominated and we just couldn’t do it for a full three periods and we had a better game tonight for sure,” said Justin Brazeau.
The Battalion leads Oshawa in the standing by only a point and with the win maintain the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference and are only two points back of fourth place Niagara.
“We knew going into this weekend we had three big games, the biggest games of the year. We’re just trying to take it one game at the time. We got the two points here and we have to do a good job against Mississauga on Sunday because they are right with us as well,” stated Brazeau.
Only 13 games remain in the regular season, all versus Eastern Conference opponents.
