"Forgetful” is one word to describe North Bay’s performance against the Oshawa Generals on Friday night. Battalion Assistant Coach Scott Wray says the 7-1 loss in Oshawa is a game they have to wipe from the memories right away.
“We have to reset and forget that,” he said following the game. Wray added “we just lost to a really good hockey team and we just have to forget it and leave it here.”
It looked as if North Bay’s night was going to go a lot better out of the gate. In the first period they got 16 saves from goaltender Christian Propp, halting an impressive offensive attack in the early going.
The Troops also got out of the first period when Captain Justin Brazeau sent a puck past Kyle Keyser at 11:37 which appeared to ring off the post and come out, but upon further review, clearly crossed the line and was counted as Brazeau’s 54th goal of the season.
But Wray says the game turned in the second, on two very similar looking goals in which Oshawa Generals players got a pass out of the zone and got into the zone on partial breakaways.
“The two semi-breaks don’t help,” says Wray. “It’s one thing we covered, we knew they liked to stretch you out and send that weak side guy coming across, and that’s what happens.After the Brazeau goal, things looked pretty even, but all of a sudden it all broke loose.”
Those goals came at the 7:00 point of the second period via Allan McShane’s 30th of the season. At 11:24, Anthony Salinitry (43) scored his first of three on the night.
Salinitry added another one three minutes later to shoot the Generals into a 3-1 lead, heading into the second intermission.
The Battalion started to take some penalties from that point on and 46 seconds into the third, Salinitry finished off the hat-trick with his 45th of the season on the man advantage.
Oshawa would score three more times in the final frame.
Brett Neumann (41) at 5:19, Tyler Tullio (14) at 8:20 and Giovanni Vallati (11) at 10:24 which was also a power play goal as Oshawa finished 2/7 on the power play.
Wray says this was a let down coming off a big 4-2 win at home against Sudbury last Sunday.
“We’ve had some really good efforts and now we’ve got five games left and we just have to worry about the next one. We can’t dwell on it. We just have to worry about Peterborough on Sunday, and get back to work tomorrow morning, that’s just the nature of the beast.”
Concerning perhaps is the Battalion road record which has the Troops winning just two of their last seven games on the road, the last regulation winning going back to January 12th, which was the last win in an 11 game point streak. And they will have to play without home ice advantage in the post-season, which is something Wray said the team has to think about as they finish the season.
Wray says “we’re on home ice and we have four of our next five at home, and for us right now, we’re in a best of seven series. We have to act like that and if we take care of the three or four wins that we can get out of the five, then we are in the playoffs. That’s how we have to take that mentality.”
The Battalion hosts Peterborough on Sunday and will play a rescheduled game against the Barrie Colts on Tuesday. They have just one remaining road game, next Friday in Mississauga.
The Battalion went 0/3 on the power play and were out shot 51-28, and have given up 50 shots or more against in four of their last eight games played.
