Brandon Coe scored twice including a highlight-reel marker to open the scoring as the North Bay Battalion defeated the Hamilton Bulldogs 5-2 at the First Ontario Centre on Friday night in Hamilton.
With the teams playing 4 on 4 Brandon Coe with a great individual effort gets around the Bulldogs defence and makes a dominant "Mario Lemieux" like deke to open the scoring near the six-minute mark.
Then, not long after on a power play Kyle Jackson finished off a nice cross-crease pass which made it 2-0 Battalion less than seven minutes in.
It stayed that way until the late stages of the second when the Bulldogs George Diaco made a nice move in front of the Battalion net and slipped one past big Joe Vrbetic to make it 2-1 after 2.
Early in the third period the Troops increased their lead as Brandon Coe finished off a nice passing play for his 13th of the campaign to make it 3-1 on the power play.
The Bulldogs countered just over a minute later as Ryan Humphries beat Vrbetic for his seventh cutting the lead to 3-2.
Mitchell Russell added an insurance marker at 16:27 as he needed his 12th which made it 4-2 Troops.
Simon Rose put the icing on the cake with an unassisted empty net goal with just over 90 seconds to play to make it 5-2.
Joe Vrbetic got the victory along with 19 saves for the Troops.
Coe was named the first star and he netted two goals and one assist in the win while linemate Matvey Petrov contributed with three assists and Kyle Jackson finished with one goal and one assist.
The Troops are back on the ice tomorrow night as they travel to St. Catharines to take on the Niagara IceDogs.
