Troops come up shortie
WINDSOR, Ont. — Andrew Robinson scored one goal and added an assist, pacing the Windsor Spitfires to a 3-2 victory Thursday night over the North Bay Battalion, which opened a three-game Ontario Hockey League road trip.
Shorthanded goals were the order of the night, as both Robinson and Bogdan Yakushevsky scored while killing penalties for Windsor and Evgeny Dubrovtsev did the same for North Bay.
Shawn Costello contributed Windsor’s other goal, while goaltender Jake Windbiel, playing his fourth game of the season and his fifth in the OHL, stopped 15 of 17 shots before 4,680 at the WFCU Centre. The Spitfires, who posted their first home-ice win of the campaign in three tries, have a won-lost-extended record of 2-2-1.
Adrian Manzo provided the other Battalion goal, and goaltender Owen Loftus stopped 13 of 16 shots in the low-events affair. North Bay is 2-3-0, having lost its three away games.
The Troops, who trailed 3-1 through 40 minutes, pulled within one when Manzo, a former member of the Spitfires, scored at 12:41 of the third period on a screened shot from the right point. Nolan Laird and Rene Van Bommel assisted on defenceman Manzo’s first goal of the season.
North Bay was handed a two-man advantage lasting 1:09 at 14:43 when Yakushevsky joined Caden Harvey in the penalty box, but the Battalion couldn’t find the equalizer, and Shamar Moses took a roughing minor at 16:01 that offset the second Windsor penalty.
The Spitfires seized a 2-0 first-period lead, sparked by Costello at 2:15 with his second goal. In heavy traffic in front of the net, he deflected a right-point shot by Jonathan Brown.
Penalty killer Robinson scored at 17:26, stepping into open ice in the mid slot to find the puck and wire it past Loftus. Anthony Cristoforo had the sole assist.
It was a lacklustre first frame, with the count of shots on goal 6-2 in favour of the hosts.
Hayden Barch scrapped with Costello at 8:26 of the middle period, drawing an instigating minor and misconduct in addition to an offsetting major, and Moses took a double minor for high-sticking at 9:49, simultaneous with an interference call against Windsor’s John McLaughlin.
Dubrovtsev connected shorthanded at 12:29, cashing his own rebound from the left hash marks off a rush. Arseny Pronin had the lone assist on Dubrovtsev’s fourth goal, tied with Kam Hodgson for the team lead.
Penalty killer Yakushevsky struck on a breakaway at 18:02, slipping the puck between Loftus’s legs. Robinson assisted on Yakushevsky’s third goal, which tied Cristoforo for tops on the team.
The Battalion visits the London Knights at 7 p.m. Friday. The game can be seen live in North Bay on YourTV Channels 12 and 700.
BATTALION BULLETS: Dubrovtsev has a four-game points streak in which he has four goals and one assist for five points … Hodgson saw the end of three-game points and goal-scoring streaks in which he had four goals and one assist for five points … Moses had a three-game points streak of one goal and two assists for three points ended … Each team went 0-for-5 on the power play … The Troops, who left North Bay after practice Wednesday, will overnight at London throughout the trip … Opening lines had Cam Warren centring left winger Max Crete and right winger Hodgson, Dubrovtsev centring left winger Moses and right winger Parker Vaughan and Laird pivoting left winger Van Bommel and right winger Ryder Carey. Jax Pereira centred left winger Lincoln Edwards and right winger Pronin … Defence pairs saw Carter Kunopaski with Barch, Oskar Kunobelj with Manzo and Alexander Karmanov with Declan Gallivan … The Battalion was without Cole Vreugdenhil, Aaron Enright, Kent Greer, Alexandre Saulnier, Austin Brekelmans, Easton Poe and Nikolas Rossetto … Enright suffered an upper-body injury in practice Tuesday … Vaughan returned from a two-game suspension after taking a match penalty for slew-footing in a 7-2 road loss Sept. 20 to the Oshawa Generals … Gallivan made his season debut. A seventh-round pick in the 2023 OHL Priority Selection, he played one game in each of the last two years … Windbiel was a 2024 seventh-rounder from the Chicago Mission 15U squad.
