After snapping a two-game losing streak on Thursday night, the North Bay Battalion have put together two straight wins on the strength of a two-goal performance by Josh Bloom and an outstanding 46 save performance by Dom DiVincentiis to pick up his franchise best 32nd save of the season in a 3-0 shutout of the division rivals Mississauga Steelheads on Friday evening at the Paramount Fine Foods Centre.
The Troops are now 39-17-2-1 with 81 points and with Barrie idle on Friday tonight, the lead in the race for the Central Division is now back to a five-point gap with the Colts sitting at 76 with their turn to gain ground coming up on Saturday evening when they host the Steelheads.
Riding the wave of momentum carried over from their 5-3 victory over Sudbury, the Troops got off to a good start against the Steelheads, taking a 2-0 lead on goals by Ty Nelson (22) at 8:59 on the power play and Josh Bloom (27) at 11:35.
“I thought we were a lot better than we had been in recent games,” says Bloom.
“Getting up 2-0 in the first period is exactly the kind of start that you want. With the way we started and DiVincentiis playing well, we had a good handle on the game all night.”
This was DiVincentiis third career shutout, all of them taking place this season and it was well earned. While he turned aside 17 shots in the first period and 16 in the third, it was a sequence of saves in the second period that really turned some heads. “He was unbelievable, Mississauga could not buy a goal,” says Bloom.
“He had a stretch of three saves in the second period where we just looked at each other like ‘oh my God, how did he stop that?’ he’s a special player, he’s a great teammate and we’re just ecstatic to have him as we’re looking to go on a deep playoff run here.”
This is the second straight Friday night that DiVincentiis has posted a shutout as he turned aside 33 shots from the Saginaw Spirit a week ago.
Blooms two goal night gives him three points on the weekend. Now a Vancouver Canucks prospect after his rights were traded by the Buffalo Sabres last week, Bloom says he’s enjoyed playing on a line with Pasquale Zito and Kyle McDonald over the last few games. It’s a line combination that features three players who did not start the season on the same team, with both Bloom and Zito getting traded to North Bay over the course of the current campaign.
“It feels great out there. We’ve got a shooter with McDonald and passers with Zito and I and all three of us can finish too. We play with a lot of speed, and it’s been a lot of fun to play with those guys,” says Bloom.
Zito set up Bloom for his first goal, chipping it over the blue line to Bloom’s stick as he raced in down the left wing and took a shot from a sharp angle to beat Mississauga goaltender Alessio Beglieri on one of the 30 total shots the Battalion sent towards the Steelheads netminder.
Bloom also added an empty net goal that was set up by his other linemate McDonald at 18:43 of the third period.
“By the way we played tonight I thought that we were dominant in the o-zone and moving our feet really well and felt like at times Mississauga couldn’t get out of their own end,” says Bloom.
“I’m excited to see what we can do here down the stretch this late into the season and into the playoffs.”
The Battalion have just nine games remaining in the regular season and they’ll cross one more off the schedule on Sunday when they host the Niagara IceDogs at Memorial Gardens at 2 p.m. You can catch that game on the Frontline Broadcast on YouTube.
