A fourth straight road game and a fourth straight loss for the North Bay Battalion, this time a 9-3 defeat at the hands of the Guelph Storm.
Similar to the results from the weekend before, the Battalion (3-10-0-0) were in the game for most of the 60 minutes that were played. But a couple of early goals in the third period turned a 4-2 Storm lead into a 6-2 advantage, and the home side potted in a couple more to hand the Troops their 10th loss of the season.
The goal by Cederic Ralph (4) with just 24 seconds remaining in the second period seemed to be enough of a momentum builder for the Storm at the time, and despite the Battalion coming out with a lot of jump in the third, while down 5-2, they gave up a goal at 3:20 to Andrei Bakanov (4) to see the deficit get to 6-2 and the Troops would never recover from that point.
“We lost a lot of one on one battles today,” says Battalion Assistant Coach Adam Dennis.
“I think that was the difference in the end,” he added.
The Storm jumped out to a two-goal lead in the early going. Keegan Stevenson (4) at 4:43 and Eric Uba (4) at 5:13 gave the Storm an edge in the first period, but the Troops cut into that less than a minute later, when Kyle Jackson (3) was set up in front of the net and a James Mayotte point shot found it’s way onto Jackson's stick. He then promptly put it behind Guelph Goalie Nico Daws for a 2-1 score.
It stayed that way until 12:24 of the second period when Jacob Roach (3) regained the two-goal advantage for the Storm, but about four minutes later it was the North Bay power play bringing the team to within one again.
Liam Arnsby passed a puck from behind the net into the slot where Luke Moncada (6) was waiting for one and he slid it passed Daws to bring North Bay right back to within one for a 3-2 score.
“You’ve got to want to win,” says Dennis when asked about how to change the outcome of those one-on-one battles.
“I think that’s the difference right now, other teams are wanting it a little bit more. The breaks in the game are affecting our group and we need to find a way to be a bit more mentally tough and we need to find a way to win those one-on-one battles.”
The Storm then rattled off three more goals after Bakanov’s tally with Stevenson (5), Bianconi (1) and Sikic (1) getting onto the score sheet within a span of about six minutes.
Mason Primeau (5) got one back for North Bay at 12:07, scoring against the team that drafted and then traded him to North Bay last year.
Cam Hillis (5) rounded out the scoring with a goal at 16:42 of the third.
“This is a game of hundreds of one-on-one battles all over the ice and if you’re not on the right side of those battles then you don’t win hockey games,” says Dennis.
The Battalion outshot the Storm 34-32 and were 1/2 on the power play while keeping the Storm 0/2 on their power play opportunities.
The Troops finish off the grueling road trip with a game against the Owen Sound Attack on Saturday night.
“We can be a lot better,” says Dennis. “We have a chance to do it again tomorrow and we need to right this thing.”
