Bulldogs blank Battalion
HAMILTON — Avery Hayes has the North Bay Battalion in a daze.
Hayes scored two goals, one shorthanded, and added an assist to power the Hamilton Bulldogs to a 5-0 victory Sunday night, giving the winners a lead of two games to none in the Ontario Hockey League’s best-of-seven Eastern Conference Championship Series.
Logan Morrison had one goal and two assists and Mason McTavish and Ryan Winterton each contributed one goal and one assist before 4,792 at FirstOntario Centre.
Goaltender Marco Costantini made 28 saves for his second playoff shutout after recording six blankings in the regular season, when the Bulldogs finished atop the East Division, conference and league.
Hayes scored one goal and assisted on three in Hamilton’s 5-2 win Friday night in the series opener.
Goaltender Dom DiVincentiis faced 41 shots for second-place North Bay, champions of the Central Division.
The series moves to Memorial Gardens for the third and fourth games, with Game 3 scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Hamilton carried a 4-0 lead into the third period of the chippy affair, in which it was apparent that the teams have developed a mutual dislike. Winterton completed the scoring on the power play at 9:10, tapping the puck home from the left side on assists by Hayes and Morrison seven seconds after the Battalion was handed a bench minor for too many men on the ice.
Morrison opened the scoring with his team-leading 11th goal of the playoffs on the power play at 4:27 of the first period. The puck went behind the Battalion net off a faceoff, with Winterton feeding it in front to McTavish, who relayed the rubber to Morrison at the left side for the conversion.
The Battalion killed a boarding minor to Dalyn Wakely assessed at 9:15 for a check on McTavish, who went down exceedingly easily, and the period appeared primed to end with a one-goal differential before McTavish, in the mid slot, received the puck from George Diaco and, escaping Avery Winslow, unleashed a snap shot that beat DiVincentiis to the glove side at 19:47. It was McTavish’s 10th goal.
The period featured hostilities from the start, with Cam Gauvreau and Hamilton’s Mark Duarte eventually dropping the gloves at a scrum as time expired. Gauvreau landed the better blows and got the takedown as each received a fighting major.
Hayes struck shorthanded at 1:59 of the middle period, firing the puck home off a two-on-one rush from the right circle, with defender Ty Nelson providing a screen. DiVincentiis was confronted by Colton Kammerer in alone later in the man-advantage situation, but he shot high.
Hayes connected on the power play at 6:48, beating DiVincentiis over the right shoulder on the short side from deep on the left wing. Morrison and Nathan Staios drew assists on Hayes’s fifth goal.
DiVincentiis denied Duarte at the lip of the crease on a perfectly timed arrival off an odd-man rush at 13:28, and the Battalion applied some pressure late in the period without solving Costantini.
BATTALION BULLETS: The Battalion has an all-time won-lost record of 14-22 in the second game of a playoff series, including 5-9 on the road … North Bay last was shut out in a postseason game in a 4-0 road loss March 29, 2019, to the Niagara IceDogs in the fifth and final game of a conference quarterfinal … The Battalion’s Brandon Coe had points in all of his nine previous postseason games this year, with six goals and 13 assists for 19 points … The Troops’ Kyle McDonald saw the end of a three-game points streak in which he had three goals and two assists for five points … The Battalion went 0-for-2 on the power play. Hamilton was 3-for-6 … Michael Podolioukh of North Bay and Hamilton’s Arber Xhekaj led their respective teams in shots on goal with six … The Battalion scratched Wyatt Kennedy, Owen Outwater and Alexander Lukin … Grayson Ladd rejoined the defence corps after missing two games with an upper-body injury suffered in Game 4 of a five-game victory over the Kingston Frontenacs … Hamilton dressed the same complement as in the opener … Both Morrison and Winterton have a 10-game points streak, Morrison with 11 goals and 10 assists for 21 points and Winterton with four goals and 10 assists for 14 points … McTavish has an eight-game points streak in which he has nine goals and six assists for 15 points … Joe Monette and Sean Reid were the referees.
