Bluelines" is written by Ranjan Rupal (right), the play-by-play voice, and Greg Theberge (left), a former Memorial Cup winner and Washington Capitals defenseman and hockey analyst for The OHL Tonight on TVCogeco.
The last time defenseman Kyle Wood returned to the North Bay Battalion following an extended absence, his team promptly lost four in a row.
That was back in the 2013 season, just after Christmas, with Wood returning from a knee injury that had sidelined him for the entire first half of the season.
Fast forward to 2015, and it’s beginning to look like déjà vu all over again.
The big defenseman’s return from a broken hand was expected to inspire a club that had managed to stick with the pack by playing .500 hockey, and while a 4-3 loss to the Conference-leading Kingston Frontenacs didn’t cause widespread anxiety, their woeful performance at the Hershey Centre the following night has fans reaching for their Rolaids.
Aside from the final 100 seconds in the Kingston loss, the Troops have been outscored 11-1 by their opponents over two games, including a numbing 7-0 loss to Mississauga in the Great Trout Rout.
This is not to say that Wood was responsible.
The Troops’ usually reliable penalty-killing unit, which had been operating at 86% efficiency, third best in the League, suddenly lost its mojo, allowing 4 goals in 9 shorthanded situations through the two games.
More to the point, the Battalion lacked the physicality that had been their trademark over the first two seasons. On paper the forwards are big enough to grind it out, each well-over six-feet with the exception of Steve Harland and Zach Poirier, though the latter has earned a reputation for toughness. But on this night the Battalion was easy to play against, giving up too much time and space to Mississauga’s wickedly slick ’98, Alex Nylander (3 goals), as well as to a pair of blue-chip ’99’s in Owen Tippett (2 goals) and Ryan McLeod (2 goals).
The Battalion’s overall effort was missing any semblance of Ben Thomson-like bone-crunching hits, lacking the greasy-creasy presence of a Ray Huether and had none of the grouchiness of a Brenden Miller, the bringer of pain back in the day.
Coach Stan Butler categorized the troubling defeat as the new lowest of the low, telling battalionhockey.com that it was “the worst effort by our guys in three years in North Bay” undercutting the previous nadir established just two weeks ago in a 4-1 loss at Kingston.
Even though knowledgeable fans will point to a certain 10-1 playoff thrashing at the hands of the Guelph Storm as the real indelible low-water mark for the franchise, Butler’s intention in stating the case was to raise alarm with his current crop of players, both veterans and youngsters alike, as they prepare for an important game against the Hamilton Bulldogs on Thursday.
‘Battalion Hockey’, as Coach Butler explains it, means pressuring the puck all over the ice; that opponents must pay a heavy tax for transit through the neutral zone; that the price of admission for crowding Jake Smith will be a sore lower back the next morning and that, if you were the enemy with the puck, you could count zero-Mississippi’s before a double-XL olive green jersey was in your face.
And so on Friday night, with the Coach’s message having been lost in translation, we witnessed ugly hockey: key faceoffs lost; opponents camped in front of an embattled Jake Kment; ill-timed line changes; indifferent play along the boards; and an abandonment of the notion of one man staying high when a defenseman ventures deep into the offensive zone.
Sitting eighth in the Eastern Conference, there is growing urgency to spread the gospel of Battalion Hockey to this team’s youngsters before it’s too late, before the last of the veterans who have lived and breathed the mantra, the Mike Amadios, the Mathew Santos, the Jake Smiths, are gone. The magnitude of the task brings to mind something that Butler mentioned following a recent win.
“It’s a process,” said Butler.
“It’s going to take time with these guys and as long as they keep improving and getting better, and we’re moving in the right direction, then we’re pretty happy with the group.”
Judging by his expression on Friday, being happy couldn’t have been farther from his mind.
