Troops overtake Toronto for second
TORONTO The final score didn’t reflect it, but the Brampton Battalion rode a roller-coaster 9-4 victory Friday night over the Toronto St. Michael’s Majors into second place in the Ontario Hockey League’s Central Division.rrLuch Aquino and Wojtek Wolski each scored one goal and earned four assists. Luke Lynes scored two goals and added one assist, while Taylor Raszka, Tomas Stryncl and Aaron Snow all contributed one goal and one assist.rrJ.F. Houle and Howie Martin scored the other goals for the Battalion, which got 21 saves from goaltender Daren Machesney in his second victory in two nights. The line of centre Wolski, left winger Snow and right winger Aquino, playing a second straight game together, again burned the opposition with speed and creativity.rrThe Battalion has a won-lost-extended record of 20-15-1 for 41 points, one more than Toronto, which has played one more game and is 17-14-6. The victory extended the Troops’ unbeaten streak at Toronto to 10 games, made up of nine wins and one tie since a 3-0 loss Oct. 24, 2002.rrThe nine goals tied a Battalion single-game scoring record achieved twice previously, most recently in a 9-2 victory Dec. 11 over the visiting Sarnia Sting.rrMatt Caria, Cory Vitarelli, Scott Lehman and Tyler Donati scored for Toronto. Starting goaltender Wayne Savage gave up eight goals on 29 shots before being relieved by Mark Kubicz, who faced 13 shots.rrAfter a wild first period in which the Battalion battled back to a 4-3 lead, the Troops buried the increasingly chippy Majors with five unanswered second-period goals to take a 9-3 lead through 40 minutes.rrRaszka, with what proved to be the winner, banked a shot off Toronto defenceman Steve Spade at 3:22 of the period to give the Battalion a 5-3 lead, and Martin deflected home Michael Vernace’s shot from the left point at 13:19.rrLynes scored his second goal of the game and team-leading 25th of the season on the power play at 15:57, blasting a shot from the right-wing circle, and defenceman Stryncl, with his first career OHL goal, chased Savage one minute later.rrSnow scored on the power play at 19:01, taking a nifty feed from Wolski and beating Kubicz from close range on the right side.rrThat precipitated a Toronto goon show off the ensuing faceoff in which Adam Zamec drew elbowing and misconduct penalties and Andrew Shennan and Ryan Wilson also collected misconducts for trying to get Battalion players to fight. Phil Oreskovic and Brock McPherson of the Troops also drew 10 minutes each.rrAt the buzzer to end the period, Lehman jumped Stryncl and received an instigator penalty for their fight.rrThe Majors settled down in the third period, although there was plenty of yapping, and Donati scored the only goal, on the power play at 19:26.rrThe first period saw the Battalion jump out to a 2-0 lead, fall behind 3-2 on three goals in a span of 1:53 and end the period with a 4-3 lead.rrHoule opened the scoring on the power play at 5:49, beating Savage between the legs with a screened shot from the left-wing circle, and Aquino connected at 8:22, tipping a pass from Wolski on the left-wing boards into the net from the lip of the crease.rrCaria deflected Donati’s shot from the right-wing boards at 10:06, and Vitarelli tied it 2-2 seven seconds later when he blasted a shot from a bad angle on the left-wing boards.rrDefenceman Lehman grabbed the puck on a rebound off the end boards and wired a power-play shot home from high in the right-wing circle to give the Majors the lead at 11:59.rrLynes replied with the man advantage at 15:38, rifling a shot from the right-wing circle, and Wolski put the Battalion back in front with a slap shot from just inside the blue line on the left wing at 18:19, beating Savage high to the glove side.rrNick Duff, Matt Smyth, Cody Smith, Jason Cassidy and Corey George did not dress for the Battalion. Toronto scratched Jaroslav Mrazek, Michael McGurk, Chris Cunningham, Marek Horsky, Peter Franchin and Micheal Haley.rrThe Battalion hosts the Oshawa Generals at 2 p.m. Saturday in its annual New Year’s Eve game.rrBATTALION NOTEBOOK: Attendance at the St. Michael’s College School Arena was 1,390 The Battalion was 4-for-9 on the power play. Toronto went 2-for-6 The Battalion is 9-8-1 on the road, while Toronto is 7-7-1 at home Vernace earned three assists. McPherson registered his first point in nine games this season when he drew an assist on Stryncl’s goal Donati had a three-point game, earning two assists. Justin Donati, Justin DiBenedetto and Tyler Haskins had two assists each for Toronto Battalion line combinations were unchanged from a 5-2 road victory Thursday night over the league-leading Peterborough Petes. Martin centred left winger Lynes and right winger Houle, Michael Klejna skated between left winger Raszka and right winger McPherson and Graham McNabb worked with John Seymour on the left and Nolan Waker on the right Aquino and Wolski each had five points at Peterborough, Aquino with two goals and Wolski with one Defenceman Duff completed a two-game suspension Centre Haley, whom Toronto acquired Thursday from Sarnia for goaltender Ryan Nie, served the last game of a four-game suspension incurred Dec. 11. Haley left the Sting bench and jumped Duff from behind Toronto acquired right winger Shennan on Friday from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds for a sixth-round pick in the 2006 OHL Priority Selection Mrazak and Horsky are with the Czech Republic and Slovakia entries respectively at the World Junior Championship Toronto summoned Kubicz from the Stouffville Spirit of the Provincial Junior A League to back up Savage The Battalion has three wins, including one in overtime, and one loss against Toronto this season.r
