OHL North Bay Battalion

London Lambastes Battalion 9-4

January 31, 2014 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
North Bay Battalion News Release


NORTH BAY, Ont. - The London Knights, winners of the last two Ontario Hockey League titles and hosts of the Memorial Cup tournament this May for Canadian Hockey League supremacy, scored early and often in routing the North Bay Battalion 9-4 Thursday night.

Bo Horvat led the London attack with two goals and two assists. Chris Tierney scored two goals, Matt Rupert and Gemel Smith each contributed one goal and two assists and Alex Basso, Nikita Zadorov and Brett Welychka each had one goal and one assist. Goaltender Jake Patterson faced 29 shots as the Knights moved their won-lost-extended record to 32-11-5 for 69 points, third in the Midwest Division.

Ben Thomson scored two goals, while Barclay Goodrow had one goal and two assists and Vincent Praplan the other goal for the Battalion, which saw a four-game winning streak ended. Starting goaltender Jake Smith allowed eight goals on 25 shots through two periods before Brendan O'Neill surrendered one goal on seven shots in the third. The Troops are 25-18-6 for 56 points, second in the Central Division.

The Battalion, 9-0-2 in its previous 11 home games, hadn ' t lost in regulation time at Memorial Gardens since a 5-3 setback to the Sarnia Sting on Dec. 5.

"There were parts of the game I liked and parts of the game I didn't like," said Battalion coach Stan Butler, who returned after missing one game because of the death of his mother. " I liked the start of the second period. I thought we played pretty hard and our guys battled. It was a tough game, because every time we got some momentum we seemed to lose it."

The Knights dominated the first period, outshooting the Troops 11-6 and seizing a 4-0 lead before a crowd of 3,681.

"We were standing around in the first," said Butler. "Sometimes you can give good teams too much respect, and I thought our guys did that, which is surprising because our guys normally don't. We ' ve been on a pretty good roll here, and I thought we could compete at that level. When we played the way we normally do, we had some decent success."

Defenceman Basso opened the scoring 1:43 into the game when his shot from the blue line eluded a screened Smith, and Horvat struck at 7:14. Smith dove forward to try to corral a loose puck, but Horvat pried the disc away from the goaltender and dished it to Rupert, who returned it to Horvat for the deposit in the vacant net.

The Knights then capitalized on two power plays, with Rupert scoring at 10:51 on a backdoor play and Tierney burying a Max Domi feed at 17:58.

Fired-up Troops carried the play to London to start the second period. Jamie Lewis tested Patterson twice in the third minute, and seconds later Thomson took a loose puck from a faceoff and sliced a shot over the goaltender's glove at 3:27.

With the teams skating four a side, Thomson connected again at 7:57, bolting to the crease and steering a nifty Nick Paul feed under Patterson. It was Thomson ' s 17th goal of the season and his 14th since joining the Battalion from the Kitchener Rangers.

Defenceman Zadorov made it 5-2 at 13:59 during a two-man advantage that resulted after Marcus McIvor and Brenden Miller went off for interference and high-sticking calls seven seconds apart.

"I didn't think McIvor's was a penalty, and then, when Miller went to the box, I thought they were getting a penalty, " said Butler.

Tierney scored his team-leading 30th goal from a sharp angle to Smith's left at 15:08, and Smith darted in on the right wing to make it 7-2 at 16:10.

Praplan converted on the power play for his 15th goal at 16:46 after Patterson failed to cover the rebound of a Miller shot before Horvat scored at 19:47, swiping a Ryan Rupert pass into the top corner from deep in the right circle.

Welychka squeezed a loose puck between O'Neill's pads at 2:52 of the third period, and Goodrow capitalized on the power play at 9:06, notching his team-leading 23rd goal.

The Battalion visits the Oshawa Generals at 7:35 p.m. Friday. The game can be seen live in North Bay on TVCogeco Cable 12.

BATTALION BULLETS: The Battalion last allowed nine goals in a 9-3 Brampton loss to the host Kingston Frontenacs on Nov. 26, 2010 ... It was the most goals given up by the Battalion on home ice since an 8-2 loss at Brampton to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds on Feb. 11, 2007. The Troops have never allowed 10 goals at home ... The last Memorial Cup host to play at North Bay was the Guelph Storm, which defeated the Centennials 5-2 on Feb. 28, 2002 ... Zach Bell, traded to London on Nov. 19 for fellow defenceman Miles Liberati and a conditional fourth-round OHL Priority Selection pick in 2016, served the fourth game of a five-game suspension ... Matt MacLeod dominated the Knights ' Tait Seguin, a North Bay product, in a first-period fight ... The Battalion went 2-for-4 on the power play. London was 3-for-5 ... The Battalion, which dressed 11 forwards and seven defencemen, was without Mike Baird, Jared Steege, Mike Amadio and Calvin Gomes ... London visits the Sudbury Wolves on Friday night, with the Wolves set to retire Knights coach Dale Hunter's No. 15. Starting in 1978-79, Hunter played 120 games over two seasons with Sudbury, scoring 76 goals and adding 119 assists for 195 points while drawing 377 penalty minutes. He played 1,407 National Hockey League games over 19 seasons with the Quebec Nordiques, Washington Capitals and Colorado Avalanche, scoring 323 goals and earning 697 assists for 1,020 points while amassing 3,565 penalty minutes, second only to Tiger Williams in NHL history.

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