Troops, 67’s ready to renew hostilities
NORTH BAY, Ont. — If two meetings to this point in the Ontario Hockey League season are indicative, the game between the North Bay Battalion and Ottawa 67’s at Memorial Gardens at 7 p.m. Thursday could be any kind.
The Battalion got goals from Brett Hargrave, on the power play, and Brett McKenzie in the final 2:34 for a 2-1 victory Oct. 15 at Ottawa. Five days later, the Troops erupted for five third-period goals in an 8-5 home-ice win in which Hargrave and Zach Poirier scored two goals each, with Daniil Vertiy assisting on all four.
Brent Moran, who made 34 saves in the first game, and Ottawa’s Leo Lazarev were the opposing goaltenders in both meetings. But the Battalion lineup has been depleted since then, with Moran, dealing with a sore shoulder, and backup Mat Woroniuk, out with a leg injury, among those who are unavailable.
North Bay, sporting a won-lost-extended record of 15-14-2 for 32 points atop the Central Division, also will be without Poirier and Cam Dineen. Poirier starts serving a two-game suspension for a slew-foot in the team’s most recent outing, a 3-0 loss Sunday to the visiting Windsor Spitfires, while Dineen suffered a leg injury Friday night in a 5-2 road loss to the Oshawa Generals when run by Robbie Burt.
“He had an MRI last night, so we’re waiting on the results from that, and once we get the results from that, (athletic therapist) James (Borrelli) and him and our doctors will have some time together and at that time we’ll have a better indication, we hope, for when Cam will be back,” Battalion coach Stan Butler said Wednesday.
Butler, who wasn’t pleased with Burt’s conduct, said he didn’t know whether supplemental discipline would be handed down by the league but suggested the absence of Dineen will hurt.
“We’re short on left-shot defencemen as it is. Cam’s our go-to guy on the power play. He’s a great five-on-five minute-eater. You don’t replace guys like that.
“It does give Eric Allair an opportunity, here in his first year, to grow a little bit, and hopefully he can step up and some of the other guys can step up their game just a little bit more to help ease the pain of Cam not being there.”
In addition to Moran, Woroniuk, forward Poirier and Dineen, the Troops are without Jacob Ball, who’s missed four games with a shoulder injury, and fellow left winger Max Kislinger, who suffered a broken wrist after appearing in four games this season and now is with the host country’s national team at the second-tier world junior championship at Bremerhaven, Germany.
“We’ve got five or six guys out, so that’s going to hurt us, but we hope that the guys that are left will get some motivation and try to get a couple of wins here at home before we head home,” said Butler, whose charges host the Peterborough Petes at 2 p.m. Sunday in their only other game before the OHL’s holiday hiatus.
“In a perfect world, we’d like two, but we’ve got to win at least one out of the two here to go into the break keeping our nose above .500 and then, hopefully, after Christmas I think both Ball and Kislinger should be back as soon as we start and then hopefully our goalies will fall into line after that and we can get some resemblance of the team we have.”
Butler noted that Julian Sime, acquired from the junior A Mississauga Chargers on Nov. 29, has played well in limited games in relief of Moran and Woroniuk. Sime is 2-3-0 with one shutout, a 3.00 goals-against average and an .893 save percentage.
Logan Sawka, who backed up Sime in the last two games, has been returned to the Espanola Express of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, and Ty Sparling of the New Liskeard Cubs of the Great North Midget League is to dress for the next two games. The 17-year-old stands six-foot-one and weighs 190 pounds.
Ottawa, which fell 6-2 Sunday to the visiting Petes in its most recent outing, is 1-3-2 in its last six games and 13-15-4 overall for 30 points, tied with the Kingston Frontenacs for fourth place in the East Division. Like the Troops, the 67’s have a better record on the road than at home, having gone 9-5-3 away from TD Place.
Right winger Artur Tyanulin leads Ottawa in scoring with 12 goals and 31 assists for 43 points in 32 games, while left winger Austen Keating has six goals and 23 assists for 29 points in 32 games and centre Patrick White has 12 goals and 14 assists for 26 points in 32 games. Sasha Chmelevski, out indefinitely with an upper-body injury, tops the team with 14 goals and has 11 assists for 25 points in 29 games, and fellow centre Drake Rymsha has 25 points, including 12 goals, in 32 games.
Centre McKenzie leads the Battalion with 15 goals and 20 assists for 35 points in 30 games, and right winger Steve Harland has a team-high 17 goals and 15 assists for 32 points in 31 games. Left winger Vertiy, who sat out Sunday while sick but is expected to face Ottawa, follows with seven goals and 11 assists for 18 points in 30 games.
