Battalion Score Five Unanswered and Take Down Colts
Saturday night the Barrie Colts welcomed divisional rival, the North Bay Battalion to the Barrie Molson Centre for the first time this season. In the next, the Battalion will return twice, while the Colts will head out to North Bay once.
The previous time these two teams saw each other this season, the Battalion got the better of the Colts with a decisive 7-3 win. Thursday night, the outcome would again be the same – with only a different score.
After getting up 2-0 eleven minutes into the game, the Battalion scored five unanswered goals to lead them to a 5-2 victory over the Colts. The Colts were leading heading into the second period, but gave up two early goals in the second period and were unable to crawl out of the deficit.
Justin Scott and Rasmus Andersson scored the two Colts goals in the loss, while Andrew Mangiapane tallied two assists in his return from an 8-game suspension, and Kevin Labanc also notched a pair of assists. In goal for the Colts, David Ovsjannikov stopped 25 of the 30 shots he faced on the night, before being replaced by Ruan Badenhorst. Badenhorst would stop all shots he faced in just over 10 minutes of play.
Near the halfway mark of the first period, Mangiapane and Labanc did a quick reground at the Battalion red line. Labanc went wide, drawing the defenseman over, before feeding Scott moving into the slot. Scott made no mistake and buried his 10th goal of the season giving the Colts a 1-0 lead.
Not even two minutes later and on the power play, the Colts would extend their lead to 2-0 when Andersson ripped a point shot past Jake Smith after a give-and-go with Mangiapane. Labanc snagged the second assist on Andersson’s 7th of the season.
But from there, the Colts would generate offence, but couldn’t make good on their chances.
Only 41 seconds later, Brett McKenzie broke into the zone and fired a shot on Ovsjannikov. McKenzie pursued the rebound and had Steve Harland following closely. Harland ultimately found the loose puck and buried it at a tough angle to cut the Colts lead in half. Shots at the end of the first period were 10-9 in favour of the Colts.
Just over four minutes into the second period, after Radke had a chance ring off the crossbar, the Battalion came back the other way and Mike Amadio finished on a shot from the slot. Cam Dineen fed Amadio in the slot and he made no mistake. After the Battalion goal to tie the game, the referees did review Radke’s chance, but it was deemed no goal.
One minute and 24 seconds later, the Battalion took the lead on a bad bounce. Kyle Potts was clearing the puck up to Justin Brazeau who was coming across the Colts blue line. Brazeau deflected the puck and it ultimately took a bad bounce infront of Ovsjannikov, beating him to make it 3-2.
The Battalion would add a power play and short-handed goal in the third period to cement their win. Ovsjannikov was pulled and replaced by Badenhorst after the short-handed goal, making it 5-2.
The Colts gave up one power play goal to the Battalion on one of their two chances on the night. However, the Colts were also successful on one of their six chances on the man advantage.
In their last three games before the Christmas break, the Colts went 1-1-0-1, moving to 19-12-0-1 on the season. The Colts will return to the BMC on Monday, December 28th when they take on the Niagara IceDogs. For tickets, please visit the BMC Box Office or www.ticketbreak.com.
