Road stretch continues
NORTH BAY, Ont. — The North Bay Battalion, at Pete Palangio Arena for practices this week, has prepared to continue its road run with three games, starting with a date with the Peterborough Petes at 7:05 p.m. Thursday.
But coach Ryan Oulahen, rather than bemoaning the absence from Memorial Gardens because of a curling event, looks on the disruption as a potential benefit.
“There’s a night we play in Peterborough, and Peterborough’s a very tiny rink, different boards, different angles, things like that, so if there was a week to maybe prep and be at Pete Palangio we picked a good one here to be able to start Thursday in Peterborough,” Oulahen noted Wednesday.
After contending with the virtually square corners at the Peterborough Memorial Centre, the Battalion faces the Kingston Frontenacs on Friday night and the Ottawa 67’s on Saturday night to complete a season-opening stretch of five away games.
It started with two games against the Soo Greyhounds, a 4-1 Ontario Hockey League victory last Friday night and a 6-4 setback Saturday night.
While the Troops dominated much of the first game and rallied from a 4-0 deficit to a tie before losing the second, Oulahen said neither outing was up to the standard the team wants to meet.
“To be honest, we didn’t really love both games. You talk about there’s expectations and all that kind of stuff, and we’ve been trying to alleviate what the expectations are in terms of wins and losses and results, but there’s a clear expectation that we have with the way we need to play, and for us that wasn’t good enough last weekend.”
Matvey Petrov and Ty Nelson paced North Bay in points with five apiece, left winger Petrov scoring two goals and adding three assists and defenceman Nelson scoring one goal and assisting on four. Centre Kyle Jackson had three goals and Justin Ertel, playing right wing, contributed three assists.
As of Wednesday, Oulahen said, the Battalion had no lineup changes for the upcoming three games in as many nights, with right winger Kyle McDonald still away in the system of the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators, who invited the overager to camp as a free agent and now have placed him with the affiliated Belleville Senators of the American Hockey League.
“He’s having a great camp with them. I believe now he’s with Belleville, and I think it’s a really good thing for Kyle McDonald to get the extended look and try to do what he needs to do to earn a contract. Of course, we know we would welcome him with open arms if he were to come back with us.”
The game at Peterborough can be seen live in North Bay on YourTV Channels 12 and 700.
