One win in 10 games during the stretch run will not get many teams into the playoffs.
The Battalion stumble into a crucial three game weekend against divisional rivals that can be a turning point, or just a continuation of the February struggles for the injury-riddled Battalion.
“If we don’t win any games this weekend, we won’t be mathematically eliminated but we’ll definitely put ourselves in a situation where you’re getting closer to be eliminated,” Butler told the media on Wednesday.
The Troops face the Niagara IceDogs tonight, a team that blanked the Troops 4-0 in St. Catharines on Saturday. Then the Battalion travel west to Sudbury to face the Wolves Friday night and finish off a busy weekend with a journey down highway 11 to face the Eastern Conference basement dwelling Barrie Colts Saturday night.
It’s been a frustrating year for the Battalion dealing with multitudes of injuries to the goaltenders and defencemen.
But injuries aside, the club has also struggled to put together a consistent effort day in and day out.
Rookie forward Daniel Walker is one player who has been trying to lead by example using his size and physical play to bring much-needed energy to the Troops.
“I try to do my part for the team, Brett McKenzie and them have to score the goals and I just try to bring the energy going into the corners getting the puck so if I bring that energy it hopefully pumps up the boys a little bit and we can go out and hopefully win some games,” said Walker.
The big forward was blunt, stating that if they don’t make the playoffs it reflects on the players on the ice.
“Especially the older guys, they are supposed to carry the team with injuries and all that kind of stuff but if we don’t get positive results we just have to re-group in the summer and hopefully come back next season and give the fans what they deserve, a winning season.”
The Battalion expect to dress a pair of rookie affiliate players in Alex Robert and Andy Baker who both scored their first OHL goals in Sunday’s 7-4 loss to the Oshawa Generals.
“Andy’s been a guy who’s scored for the Voodoos all year, and the goal he scored is a goal-scorer’s goal. He took the puck to the net on the power play,” said Butler about Baker who has 39 goals this season with the affiliate Powassan Voodoos.
“Robert’s a kid that we thought has an extremely high skill level, but we just felt that with his physical stature — he was about 148 pounds when he came to training camp — he’d probably get hurt playing in our league, so we signed him and sent him back to junior A, and he got hurt there. Since he’s been healthy, he’s really been lighting it up in that league,” added Butler about Robert who is playing for the Gloucester Rangers of the CCHL.
Zach Poirier will miss the second game of a two-game suspension tonight and Butler expects Max Kislinger, who is recovering from the flu, should be back in the lineup on the weekend.
Brett Hargrave and Jacob Ball remain out with injuries which opened the door for the affiliate forwards for Thursday’s game.
North Bay product Eric Allair may also return to the lineup and give the Battalion six healthy blue liners for the first time since mid-January. Riley Bruce and Cam Dineen continue to progress but are still not skating with the team.
