The North Bay Battalion battled hard, fought against a hot young goalie, but in the end the Troops kept pressing.
Cam Dineen scored a late goal to tie and then Steve Harland was the hero netting the game winner in overtime in a 3-2 win for the Battalion over the Hamilton Bulldogs.
“Great shot by Dineen to tie it up and luckily I got a great pass by Thilander and I buried it and that was it,” stated Harland during a post game interview on the OHL Tonight.
While Ceci made some key saves for the Bulldogs, Brent Moran was equally as solid making some huge stops to give the Troops a chance to force overtime.
Early first the Bulldogs had a great shorthanded chance five minutes in but Battalion starter Brent Moran followed Bulldogs forward Will Bitten and made the key first period save.
Not long after that Kyle Potts converted on a Bulldogs turnover at the Troops blue line and he went down the right side with Justin Brazeau alongside for the two-on-one, but Potts elected to shoot and ripped a shot past Cole Ceci at 8:55.
The Bulldogs countered though less than a minute later as Marian Studenic converted on a nice tic-tac-toe passing play which evened things 1-1 at 9:31.
The Battalion had the advantage shot wise in the opening period, outshooting the Bulldogs 11-8 in the first frame.
Early second period it was Will Bitten again getting a great shorthanded opportunity as he went in all alone on Moran and this time his quick shot in the slot was turned aside by Moran for another big save by the overage netminder.
The Bulldogs took their first lead as Matthew Strome netted his 8th of the campaign on a nice cross crease feed under the stick of Riley Bruce that Strome ripped past Moran on the one-timer which made it 2-1 Bulldogs at 6:10 of the middle frame on the Bulldogs first power play opportunity.
The Troops continued to lead the shot count outshooting the Bulldogs 12-7 in the second period.
The Battalion had a great opportunity in the third as Trent Fox was assessed a four-minute penalty at 5:14.
Brett Mckenzie hit post and robbed McKenzie again was robbed by Cole Ceci late in the power play that kept the score 2-1 Bulldogs.
However, with the goalie pulled Cam Dineen ripped a shot from the top of the umbrella through traffic over Ceci to even the score 2-2 with 59 seconds left in regulation.
That forced an exciting three on three overtime session which was dominated by the Bulldogs.
Just over three minutes in Will Bitten and Michael Cramarossa came in on a 2 on 0 and Bitten dropped for Cramarossa and Moran made a brilliant save.
Right after the stop, Adam Thilander recovered the rebound and fired a stretch pass to Steve Harland racing down the right wing and the former NOJHL MVP blasted a shot over the shoulder of Ceci for the game winner at 3:19 of overtime.
Moran finished with 20 saves, none more important than the last one. Meantime Ceci made 30 saves in the Bulldogs OT loss.
The win finishes up a busy three-game week for the Troops which started with an 8-5 win Thursday over the Ottawa 67's, then fell 5-2 to the Guelph Storm Friday night.
The OT win improves the Troops record to 6-6.
