Battalion’s Butler talks to league
BRAMPTON, Ont. – The Brampton Battalion prepared for the third game of its Ontario Hockey League playoff series with the Sudbury Wolves not knowing whether head coach Stan Butler will be on the bench.
Butler, who received a game misconduct for abuse of an official early in an eventual 5-4 home-ice loss Sunday that evened the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal at one game each, said he spoke with senior league officials via telephone Monday but got no word as to any suspension.
Butler was tossed at 5:41 of the first period right after the Wolves scored their third power-play goal, on a two-man advantage, to take a 3-0 lead. Butler was angry at referee Ryan Carroll, and colleague Mike Cairns signaled the ejection.
Game 3 is scheduled at Sudbury at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, with the fourth game in the Nickel City on Thursday night before the series returns to Brampton on Friday night.
“It shouldn’t matter if we play in the lions’ den in Rome right now,” Butler said in relation to the Northern Ontario setting. “We’ve got to win hockey games no matter where we are. We’ve got to refocus and come back ready to play on Tuesday night in Sudbury.”
Brandon Robinson, whose double minor for high-sticking 55 seconds into the game on Kevin Raine, who wasn’t cut, started the Troops’ penalty parade, said the Battalion has to stick to basics.
“It’s always a battle going into Sudbury’s arena. We have to go in and be focused on playing our style of play. We can’t worry about anything else going on, but focus on coming home with two more wins at the end of the road trip.”
Sudbury capitalized on both ends of the double minor, scoring goals five seconds apart.
“We dug ourselves into a hole giving up three power-play goals in the first five minutes of the game,” said Robinson. “It definitely gives us something that we can build from heading into Game 3.”
The passion displayed by Butler may have rallied the Troops, who got first-period goals from Barclay Goodrow and Patrik Machac after assistant coaches Jason Ward and Ryan Oulahen called an immediate timeout.
“It was just one of those things where we decided to call a timeout to settle everyone down after the ejection,” said Ward. “He’s the key ingredient for us, and we all know that. We just wanted to make sure we sent a message to the guys to keep to our style.”
Dylan Blujus received a penalty for retaliatory roughing after Goodrow scored his second goal of the series to cut the deficit to 3-1.
“We had all the momentum at the end of the first period,” said Blake Clarke. “Goodrow’s goal was huge, and then our penalty killing right after when Blujus was in the box carried it.”
Jacob Harris gave Sudbury a 4-2 lead in the second period before Clarke and Brenden Miller scored to produce a 4-4 tie through 40 minutes. Rookie Clarke’s goal was his first since the winner in a 3-1 verdict Feb. 22 over the host Mississauga Steelheads, a drought lasting 11 games.
“It’s good to get on the board in the playoffs,” said Clarke. “I finished the regular season kind of snakebitten in terms of points, but I need to be an offensive player and contribute goals and points to help the team be successful, and I was happy to have been able to chip in.”
Dominik Kubalik scored at 8:27 of the third period off an offensive-zone faceoff, preventing the Battalion from completing the comeback.
“We all kind of fell asleep off that faceoff,” said Clarke. “That’s something that should never happen at this level. That’s a trick from peewee. You can never get walked through to the back door like that. Everyone on the ice was at fault on that play.
“You don’t ever plan to start a game with five penalties in the first five minutes. I thought we battled back as best as you can, and to be able to fight back and make it a 5-4 game was a great showing of the character we have on this team.”
The Battalion, which finished the game storming the Sudbury net, including during two late power plays and with goaltender Matej Machovsky gone for a sixth attacker for the final 52 seconds, couldn’t repeat a first-game victory, by a 4-1 count at home last Thursday night.
“I didn’t think we were hungry enough or had the killer instinct after working so hard to get back in the game,” said Butler, who watched the proceedings on television in his office after being banished. “We had more shots in the third period, when by coincidence the power plays evened out at six. At the end of the day, we didn’t create enough at even strength, especially in the third period, to win the game.
“We’ve created our own problems with what happened today. Now we’ve got to get ready to go up to Sudbury and solve them.”
The game at Sudbury can be seen live in Brampton on Rogers Cable 10 and in Caledon and Orangeville on Rogers Cable 63.
