The North Bay Battalion continued their solid road play as they rebounded in a big way from a disappointing 6-1 loss at home Thursday to the Soo Greyhounds with a 3-2 road win over the Hamilton Bulldogs.
Magic man Steve Harland continued his impressive season scoring twice for the Troops in the win. Daniil Vertiy had the other in the victory.
Harland now has 15 goals and 27 points in 25 games this season.
“It’s an amazing win you know they are a conference rival and getting two points over them is amazing, the whole team played great especially Moran, he kept us in there, luckily I was able to bury two and we got the two points and that’s all that matters,” Steve Harland told OHL Tonight’s Laura Barney.
But the game didn’t come without a scare.
A day after rookie netminder Matt Woroniuk sustained a serious lower body injury, workhorse starter Brent Moran got injured in the third period falling onto his blocker side shoulder.
The Troops had an emergency backup goaltender on loan in the form of Bradley Van Schubert from the Newmarket Hurricanes of the OJHL as Moran’s backup.
Fortunately, after some minor treatment on the ice by trainer James Borelli, Moran was able to gut it out.
“Obviously you don’t want to see that, anybody getting injured is obviously something you don’t want to see but we also have a backup who is a call-up and I’m sure he was pretty nervous thinking he would have to go in but you know what Moran pulled through and kept us in there and it was good,” added Harland to the OHL Tonight.
The Battalion came out with a lot more energy than they had at home in the loss to the Greyhounds.
Of course the Troops recall an OT comeback win over the Bulldogs in Hamilton last month.
The Troops got on the board first as their struggling power play got on track.
Cam Dineen with a seeing-eye wrist shot through a sea of legs was deflected by an opportunistic Steve Harland as it went got through and evaded Bulldogs goalie Kaden Fulcher for the 1-0 lead at 11:34 for the only goal of the first period.
“We need a bounce back game coming off the loss to the Soo, I thought we played pretty well in that first period and we just have to keep it going,” said Steve Harland in an intermission interview on the OHL Tonight.
“We need to be focused, I know the coaching staff wants us to play a full 60 minutes and that’s our focus right now and it’s working out for us.”
And the Battalion did just that and increased their lead in the process.
Daniil Vertiy added to the leads Vertiy got the puck in the slot, spun around and beat Fulcher for the 2-0 lead at the 12 minute mark.
Less than a minute later, Bradley Chenier created a turnover at the Bulldogs blue line and fed McKenzie down low and he slid a cross crease pass to the nifty Steven Harland who tipped it home for the 3-0 lead at 12:50
Justin Lemcke finally solved Brent Moran with a shot from inside the left circle through traffic which made it 3-1 at 14:57 of the second period.
MacKenzie Entwhistle walked out from behind the net and beat Moran upstairs at 12:47.
The Battalion will continue their busy schedule on Saturday as they travel to Erie to take on Dylan Strome and the Erie Otters.
