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Battalion add overage defender

Overage spot opened when Battalion released Kyle Potts
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Theo Calvas. Photo courtesy Terry Wilson/OHLImages

The North Bay Battalion has acquired overage defenceman Theo Calvas in a trade with the Sarnia Sting, the Ontario Hockey League club announced Tuesday.

The Battalion gave up its own fifth-round pick in the 2020 OHL Priority Selection and a conditional sixth-rounder in 2022. That selection originally belonged to Sarnia.

Calvas, a six-foot-five, 213-pound resident of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., was taken by the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in the 14th round of the 2015 OHL Priority Selection from the Little Caesars U18 team.

After playing 54 games over parts of two seasons with Sault Ste. Marie, he joined Sarnia via a trade Jan. 10, 2017.

In 150 OHL games over three-plus seasons, he has four goals and 29 assists for 33 points while amassing 153 penalty minutes. In 16 playoff games in 2017 and 2018 he had two goals and five assists for seven points with eight PiM.

Calvas, a right shot who turned 20 on Aug. 6, fills the Battalion’s overage quota with right winger Justin Brazeau and defenceman Cole Cameron. The third spot opened up when centre Kyle Potts cleared waivers last Thursday. He is awaiting reassignment.

The Battalion has iced a relatively young defence corps which numbers Cameron, acquired via trade from the Owen Sound Attack on Sept. 13, 19-year-old Nick King, three 18-year-olds in Travis Mailhot, David Maier and Braden Henderson, 17-year-olds Simon Rose and Payton Vescio and, in addition, Pacey Schlueting, 16, who was the club’s first-round pick last April.

Mailhot, who has played only three games this season after suffering an injury in training camp, was scratched Monday with an upper-body injury as the Battalion lost 4-1 to the Peterborough Petes in the annual Thanksgiving Day game at Memorial Gardens.

“We brought him in here to play in our top two,” Stan Butler, director of hockey operations and head coach, said of Calvas. Butler got the trade done despite being on medical leave.

Sarnia general manager Nick Sinclair wished Calvas well.

“Theo has been a major contributor to our blue line over the past two seasons with our hockey club,” Sinclair told the team’s website.

“He battled hard for our club night in and night out, helping to lead a young group in his time here. On behalf of the entire Sarnia Sting organization, I want to thank Theo for all of his hard work and dedication to our team and wish him nothing but the best with the Battalion.”

The Battalion has surrendered 38 goals in seven games, none into an empty net and far more than customary. North Bay has a won-lost-extended record of 2-5-0 for four points, fifth and last in the Central Division.

Calvas was expected to join the Battalion in time for practice Wednesday. The Troops open a three-game weekend road trip at 7 p.m. Friday against the Flint Firebirds before facing the Saginaw Spirit on Saturday night and Sault Ste. Marie on Sunday.