The North Bay Battalion had their seven-game regulation loss-less streak come to an end on Thursday night, as the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds utilized their speed to expose the Troops in a 5-2 win at Memorial Gardens.
In what seemed like one of the most fast-paced home games this year, the Battalion looked capable of keeping up with the Greyhounds early on. But once they caught their stride, they were tough to tame.
The guys in green were the quickest out of the gate with two goals in the first six minutes of the game, but the Greyhounds proved to have the endurance as they scored five unanswered goals while the North Bay sticks fell silent.
“We’ve got good team speed too, but tonight we didn’t engage and we weren’t where we were supposed to be,” Battalion head coach Stan Butler said post-game. “Even in our own end and in the corners, we were just too slow to get into the initial one-on-one battles and once that happened we were chasing all the time.”
In their last dog fight, the Greyhounds won with a sprint to the finish by scoring the game winner in the final five minutes of regulation.
This time around, they made it much more decisive.
First star of the game Boris Katchouk was the top dog, scoring two goals including the game winner. Meanwhile, Tim Gettinger and Gustav Bouramman, the second and third stars respectively, pitched in with two assists each.
“We’re not a big team, but we’re a fast team,” Katchouk said after the game. “Every game we try to be as fast as possible.
“It was chipping the puck behind their defence and utilizing their big guys with slow feet,” he added. “We had to make them turn and make them play a full 200-foot game.”
North Bay goaltender Jake Smith was pulled midway through the second period after allowing five goals on just 11 shots. Soo native Jake Kment, on the other hand, managed to shut the door on the dogs after coming in cold with 13 saves.
But all was for naught as his team couldn’t solve Brandon Halverson in the opposite crease in the last two and a half periods, who backstopped the high-flying Hounds with a 30-save performance.
“I thought for most of the night we were like a dog chasing its bone,” said Butler. “They had the puck all the time and we were chasing them, and when you don’t have the puck and you’re chasing all night, you’re just going to get tired.
For the second straight game, it didn’t take the Troops long to launch the artillery, with Mike Amadio scoring a flukey wrist shot off a Soo skate less than two minutes after puck drop.
His linemate Daniil Vertiy then finished off a textbook east-west passing play with defencemen Cam Dineen and Kyle Wood just four minutes later for his tenth of the season.
The Troops were able to put up a green wall up in the neutral zone in the early going, denying the Greyhounds their trademark speed through the middle of the ice.
That is, until Zachary Senyshyn exposed them with his explosive stride and blew past three green jerseys to bury a backhand flutter puck.
The early comeback was complete after Blake Speers, the most prolific Greyhound, was given too much time and space and skated in uncontested from the faceoff dot for a far-side snipe just inside the post.
Katchouk then put the Greyhounds in full control after the puck bounced past a sprawling Smith off of his skate, which proved to be the game-winner.
“I don’t want to blame it on the bus legs, but I don’t think we were mentally prepared in the first ten minutes,” said Katchouk. “After that our coach let us know and we stepped up with five unanswered.”
The second period started no better for the Battalion either, as a defensive zone miscommunication led to a coughed up puck onto the stick of Bobby MacIntyre, who went upstairs past Smith.
After Katchouk got behind the Battalion defence for his second of the game just two minutes later, Smith was pulled in favour of Kment.
“We got a two goal lead and instead of getting that third one we just started getting sloppy,” Butler summarized. “You’ve got to give them credit - they battled hard and came back and once they got the lead we never really responded.
“I don’t think at this time of the year making excuses is really beneficial for the accountability of our team,” he added.
The Battalion also looked reluctant to shoot the puck at all in the second stanza, sacrificing multiple odd-man rushes to try and make the extra pass, including a clear cut close-range breakaway by Vertiy.
When they did shoot though, Halverson looked more confident and poised than he did early on.
The Battalion held the Hounds at bay through the third period with phenomenal physicality, but the damage was done and the hill insurmountable.
An even bigger challenge now awaits the Battalion, as they travel to Niagara on Saturday to fight the IceDogs for sole possession of third place in the Eastern Conference.
More importantly, Butler said the road game will be a test of his team’s character.
“No matter how good of a team you are, everybody has a bad game here and there,” said the bench boss. “What we’ll find out on Saturday night in Niagara in a tough building is how we’ll respond.
“It’s not ok to lose in hockey, but it happens,” he concluded. “The big challenge is: what do you do after you lose a game? How do you respond? How do you come back from that? That will give you a better indication […] of where our team is.”
