They were looking for better starts and for the North Bay Battalion they got off to a great start on the road on Friday night in Mississauga against the Steelheads. 2:37 in Ole Bjorgvik-Holm was penalized for slashing and ten seconds into the power play. Mitchell Russell (18) fired the puck in past Kai Edmonds to get North Bay on the board 1-0 in front of “2707” fans.
Unfortunately, that would be the extent of not only the good start but the good results overall for North Bay as Mississauga would win their seventh home game in their last nine played by scoring five straight goals, en route to a 6-2 victory over the Battalion.
The Steelheads (22-23-2-1) are now just four points back of the Central Division leading Sudbury Wolves for first place in that division.
“I thought we got off to a pretty good start,” says Battalion Assistant Coach Scott Wray. “We got the power-play goal early, but then the power plays started to dry up. ” North Bay (11-34-2-0) would only get one more power-play opportunity during the game.
“They started to find their groove and just put in a couple after that first one,” says Wray.
The Battalion held Mississauga off the board through the first eight minutes of the game, but at 8:13 Ty Collins (11) received a pass from Aidan Preuter in front of the net that he chipped in to tie the game 1-1.
In the final four minutes of the period, North Bay gave up two more to the Steelheads; the first was a power-play marker from Calvin Martin (13) who was stationed in the slot and finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play that started on the left side of the zone with Cole Schwindt firing it across the zone to James Hardie who then fed it into the middle to Martin.
The second late period goal came at 18:25 when James Hardie (26) put the Steelheads ahead with his first of what would be a two-goal, three-point night. Schwindt picked up an assist on the play as well and he would finish with four helpers on the evening, setting up another Hardie (27) goal at the 17:16 point of the second period. It was the lone goal scored in that frame and it put Mississauga up 4-1, peppering Battalion goaltender Cameron Lamour with 19 shots in the second period alone and outshooting North Bay 46-19 overall on the night.
Wray addressed the late goals at the end of the period as something North Bay needs to continually work on, “you have to keep sticking with it, preaching the right things and playing the right way. It’s one of those things where they got the opportunities and scored on them.”
For the Troops, it wasn’t just late in the periods where they were giving up opportunities to Mississauga, as Wray says the team had a difficult time doing some of the fundamental things well through most of the contest.
“We definitely had a hard time getting out of our zone today, and making tape to tape passes," he said.
"Their D kept coming down the wall and we didn’t have an answer for them. We were hemmed in our zone time after time and gave up turnover after turnover. It is real tough sledding when the game goes that way.”
The Steelheads potted another goal early on in the third at 1:41 courtesy of Aidan Preuter (8) that all but put the game away for the Steelheads.
North Bay did cut into the lead at 8:34 when Brandon Coe flipped the puck down the ice for Liam Arnsby who followed the puck into the zone behind the defence and went towards the net on a breakaway. Kai Edmonds came out to challenge him, but the rookie Arnsby made a nice move to slide the puck under Edmonds and bury his third career goal to make it a 5-2 game.
“He scored a really nice goal and threw a big hit after that. It’s nice to see him get on the board and get rewarded,” says Wray.
It was one of the few mistakes Edmonds made on the night by coming out to challenge Arnsby, on an evening where he stopped 17 of 19 shots the Battalion fired at him, making it three straight games in which the Battalion have been held to under 25 shots overall.
It was also a second straight night in which the Battalion where playing without three big minute eaters in Mason Primeau, Braden Henderson and Simon Rose.
Primeau and Henderson were held out of the lineup on Thursday due to injuries, while Rose was serving the first of a two-game suspension that he received after a play that happened late in the game on Thursday was reviewed by league officials. Rose hit an opposing player going in towards the end boards and while there was no penalty called on the play, upon review the league decided to serve him with the suspension.
Wray says not having those three players in the lineup has a big effect on the team, “it’s amazing how much you miss them when they are gone. It’s one of those things where you get a really good sample size of how the other guys can step up.”
The Battalion has one game remaining on the schedule this weekend as they host the Kingston Frontenacs on Sunday. It will be the first visit to Memorial Gardens for exceptional status player Shane Wright who leads all rookies with 42 points and is second in goals scored with 25 – one back of Peterborough’s Mason McTavish who has lit the lamp 26 times in his first go-around in the OHL.
The Battalion are 0-1-0 so far this season against the Frontenacs, losing their first meeting down in Kingston in a game in which the Battalion led 3-0 after the first, but allowed a goal in the second and three more in the third losing 4-3 in a game that Battalion Owner Scott Abbott says made up his mind about making the personnel changes behind the bench.
The Battalion are 6-11-2-0 in 19 games played under Ryan Oulahen following those personnel changes, giving them 14 points in those contests. They had 10 points in 28 games before that move was made.
