Generals down tired Troops 4-1
OSHAWA, Ont. – Colt King scored the winning goal at 8:57 of the third period as the Oshawa Generals beat the Battalion 4-1 before 3,503 Ontario Hockey League fans Friday night.
Ahren Nittel, Paul Ranger and Jamie Johnson, into an empty net, also scored for the Generals. Goaltender Kevin Druce made just nine saves to collect the win.
Tyler Harrison scored the lone goal for Brampton, which managed only five shots on goal over the final 40 minutes. Kevin Couture turned in another outstanding performance in the Battalion net as he stopped 31 shots.
The loss ended Brampton’s three-game winning streak and dropped the team’s won-lost-tied record to 20-20-4, including two overtime losses. The Battalion gained a victory earlier Friday when its protest of a 4-3 road loss to the Mississauga IceDogs on Wednesday night was upheld by the OHL. Brampton was credited with a 3-0 victory.
The Troops, playing their third game in three nights, connected on their first shot on goal when Harrison, who hails from adjacent Whitby, scored 34 seconds into the game. Brent Burns corralled the puck to the right of the Oshawa goal, wheeled behind the net and slipped a backhand pass into the slot for Harrison. He one-timed it past Druce high on the glove side for his fifth goal of the season and second in two games.
Nittel, who fired a wrist shot off the post with just over six minutes gone, tied it at 11:22 when he took a pass from Ben Eager and squeezed the puck between Couture’s pads.
Couture kept the game deadlocked in a scoreless second period as he turned aside 11 Oshawa shots while Druce faced only one shot in the Generals goal.
The winner came as the Generals broke into the Brampton zone on a three-on-two. Evan Kotsopoulos dropped the puck to a trailing King, whose wrist shot beat Couture on the stick side.
Ranger collected an insurance marker three minutes later, and Johnson capped the scoring at 19:04 while the Generals were killing a roughing penalty to King.
Dan Marziani, Drew Petkoff, Jay McClement and Kamil Kreps did not dress for the Battalion.
Kyle Raftis, Tim Filin, Jordan Beirnes, Adam Berti and Chad Elliott were scratched for Oshawa.
The Troops wrap up the week with a game at the Bunker against the Sudbury Wolves at 2 p.m. Sunday.
