At times it didn’t look like they deserved any points. And at other times it felt as if they deserved both points. But in their sixth game in nine days and playing shorthanded and without their Captain, the North Bay Battalion found a way to hang in against the top team in the Western Conference and skate away with one point earned in a 3-2 overtime loss to Windsor.
In front of 2,099 fans at Memorial Gardens on the same day Team Canada won gold over Russia at the World Juniors, the Battalion gave up a 2-on-0 chance in overtime and it was Jean-Luc Foudy, the brother of World Junior Gold Medalist Liam Foudy, who ended the game, taking the pass from Daniel D’Amico and sending their 46th shot of the game past Cameron Lamour to win their third of the weekend.
North Bay (9-27-2-0) may count themselves lucky to have only been one shot away from winning the game as addressed by Troops Head Coach Ryan Oulahen.
He says, “for the most part I thought we really struggled today. Our energy, our pace, we were slow pretty much from start to finish.”
Once again, the acquisition of 19-year-old goaltender Cameron Lamour played huge dividends as he stopped 16 of 17 shots in the first period, and 26 more during regulation play.
“He played really well and found a way to get a big point for us. We stole that point and when we get into overtime I feel like we out-chanced them two to one, but they scored on their one, but that’s how overtime goes,” says Oulahen.
“Always tough to swallow, but really it could’ve been a lot worse.”
Not only were they heavily outshot but the Windsor Spitfires number two ranked Power Play got six opportunities to get a goal on the man advantage and thanks to Lamour and a hard-working penalty kill of the Battalion, they were shutout on each of those chances.
North Bay only got one abbreviated 25 second power play during the whole game, and that’s something that has to be worn as a badge of pride that a young defence could stem the tide against a potent power play.
“It was a tough day for our penalty kill,” says Oulahen. “Wish we could’ve gotten a few more chances on the power play. But to have to use the same guys over and over is tough, but we did do a good job, so that’s a positive for us.”
He added, “it’s so hard to play the game like that. The toughest part is because you can’t get into a rhythm. You can’t play every player, you have to rely on the same guys over and over to take the face-offs and those guys get grinded down. You need those players at the end of the game when things are tight and close and that probably had a lot to do with our energy levels. I just found that we didn’t have the legs that we usually should have.”
That left the Troops chasing for most of the game, but finally, a break came in the third period when the Spitfires turned the puck over at the blue line while on the power play. Mitchell Russell sprung free and raced down the ice and drew a penalty shot for North Bay.
Russell went low glove side on Xavier Medina to score his 15th goal of the season and tie the game 2-2 with just under four minutes to play in the third. It’s the sixth goal and 11th point in the last seven games for Russell who continues to be a dependable depth scorer in his OHL draft year.
“He has scored some big goals this week,” says Oulahen. “I’ve been really impressed with Mitch, he seems like a gamer. Always want’s to be on the ice in key times and we’re really happy with him and what he’s brought. He has elevated his game in the last couple of weeks.”
The other Mister dependable for the Battalion this year has been Luke Moncada, and sure enough, he was on the scoresheet again for North Bay against the Spitfires.
Moncada got the puck off a turnover behind the net in the offensive zone, skated through the slot and sent it past Median on the backhand for his 20th goal of the season. He’s another guy who has had a big week scoring in three of the four games, including his first career hat trick on Thursday. All told, Moncada has six goals since Tuesday’s New Years eve win, and 11 points in ten games since the coaching change.
His goal against the Spitfires came at 17:16 of the first after North Bay was held to just four shots in the opening 13 minutes of the game and trailed by a goal when Luke Boka (13) opened the scoring at 10:46 of the first.
The Spitfires regained the lead in the third period when Grasyon Ladd’s point shot zipped past Lamour in the opening four minutes for his second goal of the season.
North Bay was outshot 46-17 overall which ties their season-low for shots in a game, but Oulahen says they have to treat it as a lesson learned in the way the game gets played sometimes over the course of a long season.
“Over time when you do things the proper way, things are going to even themselves out," said Oulahen.
"Maybe there are times where we haven’t gotten the win but we have outplayed the opponent and today it goes the other way. We just have to keep going to the grindstone and we’re pretty excited that now our toughest stretch of the season in terms of games played in the amount of days is over now, and we got through that with a .500 record. I think we should be proud of that and now we get to reset and have some practice time and really start working with guys.”
Which guys exactly remains to be seen with the trade deadline approaching this week. The deadline to trade over age players comes up on Thursday, while the deadline to trade other players will be finalized on Friday and North Bay play Mississauga and Sudbury respectively on those days.
It could be an interesting few days for General Manager Adam Dennis and company with reports that their CHL Import pick Martin Hugo Has, a defenceman from Czech Republic who was drafted by the Washington Capitals (5th round 153rd overall) in 2019, has now elected to come to play in North America, but whether it’s for the Battalion or not remains to be seen.
They could elect to bring in the 18-year-old, fresh off playing for his home country at the World Junior Championships and add an intriguing piece to their blue line. They could also trade his rights for some assets and approach the 2020 CHL import draft with two open slots.
Last week, Dennis said the Battalion does not expect to be too active but at this time of year everyone is looking at their options. Teams in the Western Conference are basically playing a playoff game every night with only 12 points separating the first-place team from the eight place team and the top four in the Eastern Conference are starting to pull ahead of the rest of the pack.
