NORTH BAY, ON. – Ty Dellandrea showed why he is consideration for Canada’s U20 World Junior team with an excellent performance on Sunday afternoon, scoring two goals and two assists to lead his Flint Firebirds to a 5-3 road win over the North Bay Battalion.
Cody Morgan added three assists as the Firebirds finished a three-game road trip with a victory, following a 5-2 win at Barrie on Thursday and a 8-5 setback against the Sudbury Wolves on Friday. The win moves Flint back into first place in the OHL’s West Division, which continues a strong season thus far for a franchise that has been generally poor on the ice and tumultuous off it since relocating from Plymouth for the 2015-16 season.
“I thought we played good in the first period and in the second period they started to take it to us a bit.” said Battalion head coach Stan Butler. “We made some mental mistakes, and the margin for error for us, being a young team, isn’t that much.
It was the first game of the year for the Troops without Matthew Struthers, who was traded back to his original OHL club in Owen Sound last Monday in exchange for draft selections. Chad Denault, acquired from Peterborough on Wednesday, received some powerplay time but had a largely uneventful debut in a Battalion uniform.
The Firebirds were without a number of players due to injury and were missing one of their top defenceman, Vladislav Kolyachonok, who is playing with Team Belarus at the Division 1 World Juniors in his home country. With only 10 forwards and 5 defence dressed for the game, Flint was impressive given those circumstances. They weathered an early storm in the first where they were outshot 19-8 by the Battalion before carrying the pace and much of the puck possession for the latter half of the second period and the majority of the third.
Brandon Coe had two goals for the Troops, his 7th and 8th of the season. The other Battalion goal was scored by Luke Moncada, who continues to be the most reliable North Bay forward on most nights. With Christian Cicigoi out with an injury, prospect Owen Wray, son of assistant coach Scott Wray, dressed as the backup goaltender to Joe Vrbetic.
With the Battalion sitting 10 points out of the playoffs, many have turned their attention to the 2020 OHL Priority Selection where if the season ended today, North Bay would hold the first overall selection.
The top prospect is forward Adam Fantilli, who is playing this season with Kimball Union Academy, a prep school in New Hampshire where his brother is also on the hockey team. There were rumours that Fantilli was considered for exceptional player status from Hockey Canada before last year’s draft which would have put him in the same class with Kingston’s Shane Wright. Fantilli was previously with the Toronto Junior Canadiens organization before getting his release this year to play at Kimball.
The Battalion has four more games before the Christmas break still to go, with three of them coming at home against Western Conference opponents in Erie, Owen Sound and London. Attendance at Memorial Gardens on Sunday was 1,931 with The Home Depot as the presenting game sponsor.
