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Rangers run to early lead and never look back in 9-2 defeat of Battalion

It was like going to school, and watching how they play and they played hard. Like I said, that’s what we strive to be and where we want to be.
Simon Rose tries to defend his defensive zone against the Kitchener Rangers
Simon Rose tries to defend his defensive zone against the Kitchener Rangers. Photo by Sean Ryan.

For a second straight game, the North Bay Battalion walked into a situation where they were facing a team with high playoff expectations and for the second straight game that team showed they were built for a deep run into the spring by scoring early and scoring often against the Troops. Last week it was division rivals Sudbury who took it to the Battalion, while this time around it was the Midwest Division-leading Kitchener Rangers who scored three times in the first and four more times in the second en route to a 9-2 victory over the Battalion.

“That’s a team that has done very well since they’ve had a coaching change,” says Battalion Assistant Coach Scott Wray.

“If you look at the way they have built their team, that’s what we strive to be within the next two years.”

But in the meantime, the Battalion is going to take its lumps and learn some hard lessons along the way. The Troops came out of the gate with a good looking road start by throwing the body and keeping the Rangers to the perimeter while they maintained offensive zone pressure. However, that pressure proved to be too much by the 7:04 mark of the first and Fracesco Pinelli (14) managed to score on a rebound that went right to his stick off the pad of Battalion netminder Joe Vrbetic.

Two minutes later Liam Hawell (11) ripped a bullet from the blue line that got past everybody at 9:06 to establish a 2-0 lead for the home side.

The Battalion 9-30-2-0) had a chance to cut into the lead when they were awarded a power play opportunity with Jonathan Yantsis being sent off for holding, but off the draw, Greg Meireless found the puck and raced down the right wing on a 2-on-1 and took the shot himself which found the back of the net for his 19th of the season and a 3-0 lead at 14:24.

Meireles (20) made it 4-0 six minutes into the second period and Riley Damiani (18) upped that to 5-0 one minute later.

North Bay finally got on the board midway through the second period when Luke Moncada (21) completed a perfect give and go with Brandon Coe that started at their own blue line, Coe carried the puck down his right sideboards and found Moncada moving through the slot. Coe sent the puck towards the Troops Captain who then fired it past Lucas Pfiel to end his shutout bid.

That’s the closest the Battalion would get at erasing any kind of deficit as Damiani (19) and Declan McDonnell (9) would both scored for the Rangers before the second period was over.

McDonnell (10) then scored 57 seconds into the third and became the third Rangers player on the night to record two goals in the game joining Damiani and Miereless and all three players scored both their goals back to back for the Rangers.

Axel Bergkvist (4) finished the scoring for the home side at 12:51 of the third for a 9-1 advantage that became 9-2 in the last 12 seconds of the game when newcomer Avery Winslow got the puck in front of the net to Josh Currie (3) who deflected it past Pfiel for a late tally.

“I thought Winslow played well for us, and I thought there were a few little things that we did well but honestly it was just a really tough road game,” said Wray. 

“It was like going to school, and watching how they play and they played hard. Like I said, that’s what we strive to be and where we want to be.”

North Bay don’t have long to dwell on the loss as they get set to face a division rival whom they met only 16 days ago in what turned out to be a barn burner of a game-ending in a 9-8 overtime victory for Niagara in North Bay.

“It’s our job to regroup going into Niagara tomorrow. We’ve got to keep our spirits high because that is a very winnable game for us and we have to look at it that way.”

Of North Bay’s two road wins this season one of them came in their only prior visit to St. Catharines this season.


Matt Sookram

About the Author: Matt Sookram

Matthew Sookram is a Canadore College graduate. He has lived and worked in North Bay since 2009 covering different beats; everything from City Council to North Bay Battalion.
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