The North Bay Battalion will face the former North Bay Centennial franchise, the Saginaw Spirit on Thursday night.
The Troops are coming off a tough 4-3 OT loss at the hands of the Ottawa 67’s on Tuesday.
See that story courtesy Neate Sager in Ottawa here:
Stan Butler, Battalion Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations is going to continue to juggle his forwards in hopes of creating some much needed chemistry.
Michael Amadio was with Santos and Maurizio Colella, while the second line now is comprised of Zach Poirier, Brett McKenzie and Mike Baird. Steve Harland moves down to the third line with Daniil Vertiy and Brett Hargrave.
“We tried to get some chemistry going obviously, our third line we have struggled with all year so we thought by maybe putting Harland and Vertiy together it will get them some easier defensemen, probably 5 or 6 D instead of a 1, 2 or 3, 4,” said Butler.
“It may generate some scoring, and in Maurizio’s case I think he’s a pretty good scorer. He might be a good fit there. With McKenzie he’s not the hardest player in the world. W thought for a while that the line levelled off and maybe with Poirier giving him a little more ‘jam’ it would help get his numbers back to where they should be."
Butler has been pleased with the return of David Sherman, who has impressed his bench boss since his return from a nagging lower body injury that has limited him to 26 games this season.
“I thought Sherman’s comeback has shown that he wants to be a hockey player and have a little jam the last couple of games which is encouraging,” he said.
Butler insists that the key is playing the right way, and playing the right way for 60 minutes.
“I said to our players; we are a team that either wins a game or loses a game and what I mean by that is, if we play to our potential, most nights we have a really good chance to win, but when we don’t play to our potential most nights we have a really good chance to lose,” admitted Butler.
“It's up to our guys, a lot of games are very winnable if we play to the level that we are capable of, and the key word is capable.”
The Troops may see a familiar face in goal tonight as former Battalion netminder Evan Cormier returns to the Gardens. The Bowmanville product has 18 wins this year for the Spirit, but only a .893 save percentage along with a 3.47 G.A.A. for the rebuilding squad.
The Spirit come stumbling into the Gardens tonight riding a 0-3-1-1 streak and sit in the 8th position in the Western Conference, with a comfortable 10-point lead on the 9th place Flint Firebirds.
Meantime, with a win tonight the Troops can pull into a tie for third in the Eastern Conference with the Niagara IceDogs.
