Gervais set for milestone

“No matter how the standings are or which way things go, the games against these guys are always emotional and always intense,” Oulahen said Wednesday. “They play an aggressive style. They really play physical; they play hard.”

North Bay, which has won three of four meetings with the Wolves this season, has a won-lost-extended record of 21-16-2 for 44 points, second in the Central Division. Sudbury is 15-24-1 for 31 points, tied with the Brampton Steelheads for fourth place in the division.

Sebastien Gervais is to play his 300th regular-season OHL game against Sudbury. Acquired with Hayden Barch in a Jan. 5 trade with the Saginaw Spirit, overager Gervais was a 12th-round choice in the 2021 OHL Priority Selection from the Windsor Jr. Spitfires U16s.

In 297 games with Saginaw, he scored 52 goals and earned 87 assists for 139 points with 109 penalty minutes. In two games with the Battalion, he has one goal and one assist for two points with no PiM. The points came in a 5-1 win last Friday night at Brampton.

Gervais is second among active players to Ethan Miedema of the Guelph Storm, who has played 308 games, including with the Windsor Spitfires and Kingston Frontenacs. Gervais’s games total is second in Saginaw history, behind only Cole Coskey, who played 302 games culminating in 2019-20.

Cory Tanaka and Kristoff Kontos share the OHL record of 337 games. Tanaka played five seasons with the Plymouth Whalers and Belleville Bulls through 2008-09, while Kontos had five seasons with Sudbury, the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors, Mississauga Steelheads and Saginaw ending in 2013-14.

Ryder Cali, one of five Troops in midseason rankings by the National Hockey League’s central scouting department, is to play for the Eastern Conference in the Connor McDavid OHL Top Prospects Game at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Peterborough. The game can be seen live in North Bay on YourTV Channels 12 and 700.

“He’s been somebody that we’ve just loved working with — that’s on and off the ice,” noted Oulahen.

“The commitment that Ryder Cali has day in and day out is special and impressive, and I hope not only will he show his on-ice capabilities but it’s an opportunity to show all that too off the ice to a lot of people who are around there in Peterborough right now.”

Cali is joined by Parker Vaughan, Alexander Karmanov, Ryder Carey and Arseny Pronin on the list of North American-based skaters issued in advance of the 2026 NHL Draft, to be conducted June 26-27 at Buffalo in a decentralized format.

“We feel like there might have been a couple of guys, you know, held off the list as well that are big-time players for us,” said Oulahen.

The Battalion will be missing Nolan Laird, who drew an automatic two-game suspension after he received a match penalty for spearing at Brampton, and goaltender Mike McIvor, sidelined with a lower-body injury suffered last Thursday night late in a 4-2 home-ice win over the Ottawa 67’s.

“Thankfully, it doesn’t look like it’s severe, but for sure he’s going to need a little bit of time, especially for a goaltender,” said Oulahen. “So, working through it, but it seems like everything is going in the right direction.”

As he did at Brampton, Cole Vreugdenhil, who was recalled from the junior A Powassan Voodoos, is to back up Jack Lisson.

The Battalion completes the weekend by visiting the Oshawa Generals on Friday night and playing host to the Flint Firebirds on Sunday.

The Sudbury game features Freelandt Cardwell Reilly Night.