For Wake's Sakes what a finish!
Dalyn Wakely played the overtime hero in game three of the East Semi-Final series, when his goal at 12:19 ended a wild contest in Sudbury and put the Troops ahead 3-0 in the series, with a 6-5 win.
Wakely’s goal (9) was his second of the game and might be the biggest of his season after the Battalion erased a 5-2 deficit to come all the way back and shock Sudbury.
The centreman who eclipsed the 100-point plateau in the regular season was left all alone in the slot in the Wolves end and that proved to be Sudbury’s undoing as Owen Van Steensel slid the pass to Wakely who went down to one knee to fire a blast that Sudbury netminder Jakub Vondras had no chance of saving.
The North Bay Battalion has never overcome a three-goal deficit to win a playoff game in franchise history.
That is until Tuesday evening.
In the third period, while shorthanded, Justin Ertel (6) got a clean breakaway off a clearing pass from Sandis Vilmanis. Ertel carried the puck over the blue line and made a couple of head fakes before shooting blocker side and getting North Bay to within striking distance, making it 5-3 Sudbury at 5:56.
Late in the period, the Battalion found themselves on a 2-man power play advantage and Ryan Oulahen put on a masterclass of coaching playoff hockey, pulling his goaltender for a 6-on-3 attack, and with the right personnel on the ice, the move paid off.
At 16:40, Van Steensel (who finished with a three-point night 1+2) ripped a shot from the right-side sharp angle and it tucked in over the shoulder of the Sudbury netminder to get North Bay to within striking distance. The fourth goal of the post-season for Van Steensel made it 5-4 Sudbury.
Still, with the power play in hand, the Battalion kept their goaltender out of the net for a 6-on-4, and second-year forward Ethan Procyszyn (2) deflected a point shot from Ty Nelson to tie the game 5-5 at 17:08. Erasing the three-goal Sudbury lead.
Overcoming second-period deficits is a tough task for any OHL team.
The Battalion was 2-14-3-0 in that category in 2023-24. For comparison's sake, the Wolves and an almost identical record at 2-14-3-1, while the top team in the Eastern Conference, the Oshawa Generals were 4-18-1-2.
But in the Eastern Conference semi-finals, the Battalion has bucked that trend over the last few years. They trailed after the second and won on the road in Game 4 of the East Semi-Finals, on April 20th, 2023. The Battalion was down by a pair of goals to the Barrie Colts but went on to win that game 4-3 in double overtime. They also overcame a 1-0 deficit after the second period in game seven of that series when, just five days later, the Battalion scored three times in the third period en route to a 3-1 win and clinching that series.
On Tuesday evening, the Wolves badly outplayed the Battalion in the second period, outshooting them 12-0 and outscoring them 2-0.
The goals came from Chase Coughlin (1) at 14:43 and Zacharie Giroux (1) at 19:00 getting the Wolves ahead 5-2 after 40 minutes of play after the Battalion came out hot to start the game in the first period.
The Battalion opened the scoring under two minutes into the game. Ihnat Pazii (3) took a perfect pass from Brice Cooke through the slot and buried it behind Vondras, who was making his first start of the series and hadn’t played since game four of their opening round matchup against the Mississauaga Steelheads. Pazii now has points in all three games of this series with two goals and two assists.
The Troops expanded their lead shortly after when Wakely (8) scored a highlight reel goal. In the low slot, Wakely got control of the puck, moved to his left, and then slid it through his legs to get the shot off against Vondras who couldn’t keep the five-hole shut and the Battalion had the 2-0 lead just 4:04 into the contest.
But it was all Sudbury from there.
A bad giveaway at the North Bay blue line led to Nathan Villeneuve skating right down Main Street towards the Battalion net and snapping a shot that beat Mike McIvor to cut the lead in half. It was a sigh of relief for Villeneuve who was rested for the last nine games of the regular season and returned to the lineup for game one of the post-season after his 15-game suspension for online comments directed at a Barrie Colts defenceman was split, serving nine regular season games this year and the six remaining games when the next season begins – instead of 15 consecutive games.
Then 47 seconds later the game was tied 2-2 when Dalibor Dvorsky (3) was left all alone in front of the net and with too much time his glove-side shot beat McIvor at 5:54.
Villeneuve cashed in again in the first. At 17:10 he redirected a pass from Evan Konyen (the other player suspended, but returned for the playoffs) into the net for Sudbury’s first lead of the series.
McIvor was named third star of the game, with the Wolves recognizing his outstanding effort, despite the five goals against him. McIvor made 41 saves including a couple of huge stops in the third period to keep the Wolves lead to three goals, then two after the Ertel shorthanded chance. He also stopped all 13 shots that came his way after the game was tied 5-5, between the end of the third and the 12:19 of overtime play.
The Battalion was outshot 46-34 overall in the game. They went 2/2 on their power play opportunities and 5/6 on the penalty kill in front of 4,648 fans at the Sudbury Community Arena.
The Battalion has a chance to finish off the series on Thursday with game four in Sudbury. In their playoff histories, North Bay is now 7-0 head-to-head against the Wolves (4-0 Centennials series sweep in 1992) while the Battalion are 10 and 8 all-time vs the Wolves.
