Sudbury doubles Troops
SUDBURY, Ont. — Kieron Walton scored three goals and added an assist to power the Sudbury Wolves to an 8-4 victory Friday night over the North Bay Battalion in a sometimes chippy Ontario Hockey League game.
David Goyette had two goals, Andre Anania one goal and one assist and Nick DeAngelis and Alex Pharand a goal apiece for Sudbury, which moved its won-lost-extended record to 17-11-5 for 39 points, second in the Central Division, one point behind the Mississauga Steelheads.
Goaltender Marcus Vandenberg provided 22 saves for the Wolves, who took a 3-0 first-period lead and built it to 7-0 by late in the second frame before a sellout crowd of 4,936.
Anthony Romani scored two goals and Dalyn Wakely had one goal and one assist for the Battalion, which got its other goal from Owen Van Steensel while two men short.
Goaltender Mike McIvor made 34 saves for North Bay, which reached the halfway point in its schedule and is 16-13-5 for 37 points, third in the division.
Walton opened the scoring at 10:12 of the first period, sparking a Sudbury outburst of three goals in a span of 4:16. He converted the rebound of a Nathan Villeneuve shot off a two-on-one break, with Evan Konyen drawing the other assist.
Defenceman Anania connected through traffic from the left point at 13:09, three seconds after a Sudbury power play expired, with Walton and Matthew Mania assisting, and Goyette struck at 14:28, poking home a loose puck in the crease after a drive by Landon McCallum. Mania also assisted.
Goyette put home his 18th goal at 2:16 of the middle period, converting a cross-zone pass from Quentin Musty, before DeAngelis capitalized on an attempted clearing from the end boards and ripped the rubber past McIvor from between the hash marks on the power play at 8:28 for what proved to be the winner.
Walton went in alone to cash his own rebound at 11:14 and netted his 12th goal at 16:23, one-timing the puck from a sharp angle on the left wing.
Romani replied with goals nine seconds apart, threading home a right-point shot with the man advantage at 16:40 before spinning in the slot to beat Vandenberg. Alex Cajkovic and Justin Ertel assisted on the first and Wakely on the second, Romani’s team-leading 26th marker.
Pharand made it 8-2 at 3:55 of the third period before the Battalion’s Tyson Rismond received a major penalty for checking from behind and a game misconduct at 5:47 and Liam Arnsby went off for slashing at 7:42, giving Sudbury a two-man advantage for two minutes.
Van Steensel helped kill all but four seconds of the double manpower liability before breaking away to snap the puck past Vandenberg from the left circle at 9:38 for the franchise’s first-ever goal during a two-man disadvantage in the regular season. It was Van Steensel’s 16th goal of the campaign and his 100th OHL point.
Wakely one-timed his 15th goal during a two-man advantage at 16:52 as Cajkovic and Ertel assisted.
The Battalion plays host to the Oshawa Generals at 1 p.m. Sunday in its traditional New Year’s Eve game.
BATTALION BULLETS: It was the fifth of eight meetings, with the Battalion holding a record of 3-1-1. The next encounter, Jan. 25 at Memorial Gardens, opens a home-and-home series … Romani has an 11-game points streak in which he has eight goals and 13 assists for 21 points … In 166 games since being chosen in the fourth round of the 2020 OHL Priority Selection from the Elgin-Middlesex Chiefs minor midgets, Van Steensel has 37 goals and 63 assists … North Bay went 2-for-5 on the power play. Sudbury was 1-for-7 … Opening lines featured Wakely centring left winger Van Steensel and right winger Romani, Arnsby pivoting left winger Ertel and right winger Jacob Therrien and Ethan Procyszyn centring left winger Ihnat Pazii and right winger Brice Cooke. Dylan Richter centred left winger Carter Kostuch and right winger Lirim Amidovski … Defence pairings saw Cajkovic with Paul Christopoulos, Trevor McDowell with Wyatt Kennedy and Rismond with Brayden Turley … The Battalion was without Tnias Mathurin, Nolan Laird, Reyth Smith, Zach Wilson, Ty Nelson, Pasquale Zito, Stef Forgione and Charlie Robertson … Among the missing for Sudbury were Jakub Vondras and Dalibor Dvorsky, with Czechia and Slovakia respectively at the World Junior Championship in Sweden … Sudbury acquired Vandenberg from the Niagara IceDogs in a Dec. 8 trade for two third-round Priority Selection picks … DeAngelis has a 16-game points streak, the league’s longest this season, in which he has two goals and 21 assists for 23 points.
