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North Bay Battalion

Troops Overcome History at Barrie

April 15, 2014 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
North Bay Battalion News Release


NORTH BAY, Ont. - The North Bay Battalion franchise hadn ' t traditionally enjoyed much playoff success against the Barrie Colts.

Until Sunday, the Battalion, which played its first 15 seasons in Brampton, had a postseason won-lost record of 2-11 at the Barrie Molson Centre, losing 10 straight games since a 2-1 victory in the sixth and last game of an Eastern Conference quarterfinal on March 29, 2003.

Current Battalion assistant coach Ryan Oulahen, then a rookie centre with the Troops who turned 18 three days before that game, opened the scoring at 2:21 of the second period.

The losing streak included the third and fourth games of the Battalion's latest playoff meeting with Barrie, a best-of-seven conference semifinal that saw the home team win each of the first five games.

But the Troops, seeded second in the conference and holding home-ice advantage, broke their string of futility at Barrie on Sunday night, edging the fourth-seeded Colts 3-2 to capture the series in six games and advance to the conference final against the Oshawa Generals. The best-of-seven series against the top-seeded Generals opens at Oshawa at 7:05 p.m. Friday.

"We ' ve had some bad games in that rink," Battalion coach Stan Butler said Monday of Barrie ' s arena. "We ' ve certainly had some nights you wouldn't want to remember."

The win was the Battalion's second in six series against the Colts. It came after North Bay defeated the Niagara IceDogs in seven games in the first round, staging a rally from a 3-1 series deficit that included a dominating performance in a 5-1 victory in Game 6 at St. Catharines. Brampton was swept in two series against Niagara.

"To beat Niagara and Barrie in the first two rounds is great for us, because they were both teams that we had struggled with over the years in the playoffs," noted Butler.

The series-clinching game at Barrie started ominously, with Garrett Hooey scoring for the Colts at 1:23 of the first period. Nick Paul tied it on the power play at 12:04, while goaltender Jake Smith made 13 first-period saves for the Troops, who were shorthanded three times, all with premium penalty killer Barclay Goodrow in the box.

Ben Thomson gave the Battalion the lead 25 seconds into the second period and delivered a shorthanded goal, the eventual winner, at 9:48 of the third. Aaron Ekblad responded at 19:47, but it was too late for the home side.

"It was a funny game," said Butler. "They scored early, and we ran into some penalty trouble and they took it to us early. Jake held us in there and kept us settled down, and we just chipped away."

Smith has played every game in the postseason, producing a 2.08 goal-against average that ranks third in the league. As a rookie last season with Brampton, he saw action in two games in a five-game first-round loss to the Sudbury Wolves.

"He's a battler who competes," said Butler. "He doesn't get a lot of attention in the OHL, and nobody ever talks about him as one of the top goalies in the league. He came in and did a good job for us in a tough spot in last year's playoffs."

The Barrie series took a toll on the Battalion, which lost Zach Bratina when he was elbowed in a collision with Hooey in Game 2. Brenden Miller and Jamie Lewis missed the fourth game because of illness. Both returned for the next game, but Alex Henriksson, the team's leading playoff goal scorer at the time, suffered a hamstring injury and sat out the last two games.

"Losing Henriksson and Bratina as long as we did and not having Lewis and Miller for Game 4 was definitely tough for us, but it ' s a credit to the guys that they scrapped and clawed and found a way to win," said Butler.

He said the arduous first-round series, in which the Troops had to win the last three games against a seventh-seeded foe to advance, helped prepare the team for the battle against Barrie.

"It showed the guys what they ' re capable of doing when they need to do it. It teaches you that to win a playoff series you have to be the first team to four wins, not the first team to three. Our guys learned that, when they were up 3-2 against Barrie, they couldn't lose sight of the fact that they had to get that next win."

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