Barron leads Jr. A Trappers to win over former team

Jr. Trappers forward Darnell Koosees just can't get a handle on the puck in the crease during second period action. Photo by Chris Dawson.

An announced attendance of 913 showed up to Memorial Gardens on Sunday night to see the 4th place Trappers take on the winless, and last place Manitoulin Islanders. The game consisted of quiet first and third periods, with North Bay scoring all three goals in the contest in the middle period, and North Bay took this game 3-0.

The Trappers held Manitoulin without a shot for the first 10 minutes of the game, in which time North Bay got 12 shots on Islanders goalie, Mike Malmborg. By the end of the first the score was still tied at nothing, and the shots were 17-5 in favor of North Bay.

One minute and 22 seconds of the second period saw the first goal of the game scored when Brodie Barron buried a Marcel Konopelky feed in the back of the net; Dan Frawley also assisted on the Trappers first marker.

A little bit of the rough stuff took place close to seven minutes of the second when Matt Webkamigad of Manitoulin easily won a fight against North Bay’s Dan Frawley; Both players received game misconducts.

Brodie Barron tickled the twine for his second of the game three minutes later, on a feed from Marcel Konopelky.

Barron - the Islanders leading scorer last season - skated around Malmborg for the easy put-away.

Then with six minutes remaining in the middle frame, Hartwell Marable scored a fluke goal which he deflected off a Manitoulin defender into the wide open net to make it 3-0 home side. At which point the Islanders made a goalie change, opting instead for Scott Anderson.

The game’s first minor penalty game at 18:40 of the second when Todd Hellyer took a tripping call.

North Bay would go to the locker room ahead 3-0 on the scoreboard and 35-12 on the shot clock.

The Trappers would go a man down for the second time of the night at the 8:14 mark of the third when Adam Marceau took a roughing penalty. Marceau would go back to the box four and a half minutes later for roughing as well.

Hartwell Marable would take North Bay’s fourth penalty of the night for high sticking at 16:28 of the third.

Despite being a man down four times throughout the evening and never having gone on the power play themselves, North Bay took this match-up 3-0, but Coach Ian Swalucynski said his team is capable of playing better.

“It wasn’t our best, but it wasn’t our worst,” Swalucynski said. “Mitchell bailed us out all year, and it was good to see him get a shutout.”

Michael Mitchell didn’t face an abundance of shots on Sunday night, and he said it’s difficult to stay in the game when that happens.

“You kind of have to pump yourself up, because you’re the only goalie out there,” Mitchell said. “You have no one yelling at you on the bench.”

North Bay finished the game with 38 shots, but only managed three goals. Swalucynski said the main thing is his team plays well defensively.

“I don’t care if we get one goal, as long as we win. We could get 20 goals, as long as we win I don’t care,” Swalucynski said.

With the win North Bay now sits two points behind Abitibi in the East Division standings. They next see action on Saturday when they travel to Iroquois Falls to face those same Eskimos.