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OHL North Bay Battalion

Ottawa Leads off Challenging Week's Play

October 28, 2015 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
North Bay Battalion News Release


NORTH BAY, Ont. - The North Bay Battalion, having lost its last three games, faces three formidable opponents this week with a depleted roster.

"We're pretty thin right now," Stan Butler, director of hockey operations and head coach, said Wednesday as the Troops prepared to host the Ottawa 67's in Ontario Hockey League action at 7 p.m. Thursday.

The Battalion visits the Kitchener Rangers at 7:30 p.m. Friday before entertaining the Niagara IceDogs at 2 p.m. Sunday.

"Ottawa's one of the hottest teams in the league," noted Butler. "They have the top scorer in the league in Travis Konecny. Then we go into Kitchener, and I don't think they've lost in regulation time yet.

"From there you (get) to Niagara. One thing I know about Marty Williamson's team, I don't have any doubt, (given) they've got five 19-year-old defencemen, it's just a matter of time till they're good."

The Battalion, already missing Kyle Wood and Brady Lyle to this point in the season because of injury, learned that fellow defenceman Zach Shankar has been suspended for two games for a match penalty for slewfooting in a 4-2 road loss Sunday to the Mississauga Steelheads.

Wood, a 2014 draft pick of the National Hockey League's Colorado Avalanche, was to have a CAT scan Wednesday on a wrist, with results to be sent for analysis to the Denver doctor who performed surgery on the Waterloo, Ont., resident, who had 16 goals and 24 assists for 40 points in 67 games last season.

Butler said North Bay product Lyle, who has been skating at practice, has yet to receive clearance to play after suffering a broken collarbone in exhibition action. The Battalion's first-round choice in the OHL Priority Selection last April may be ready by mid November or early December.

Left winger David Sherman, meanwhile, was to have a magnetic resonance imaging test Thursday. He has sat out the last five games with a suspected sports hernia.

Butler said that left winger Brad Chenier will join the Troops for the game against Ottawa, which has a won-lost-extended record of 8-5-0 for 16 points, second in the East Division. Chenier, of the Rayside-Balfour Canadians of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, has played two games with North Bay.

The 67's have won eight of 10 since opening the season with three straight losses. Right winger Konecny has four goals and a league-leading 18 assists for 22 points in 13 games.

The Battalion, 5-6-1 for 11 points, third in the Central Division, lost 5-2 to the visiting Windsor Spitfires last Thursday night before a 4-3 overtime loss Saturday night to the host London Knights in which the Troops rallied from a 3-0 third-period deficit.

A comeback attempt at Mississauga fell short, as defenceman Miles Liberati pulled the visitors within 3-2 at 13:14 of the third period before a shorthanded empty-netter sealed the victory for the Steelheads.

"I thought our guys played pretty hard in the third period there," said Butler.

"We killed off a five-minute penalty, in fact scored at the end of that. They didn't play the day before, and we did. They should have had more energy, and I thought in the third period we came back hard."

Said Butler of the London-Mississauga road trip: "Both games were games we could have won. Our worst game by far of the weekend, quite frankly, was the Thursday game up here."

In addition to unavailable players, the Battalion is without assistant coach Ryan Oulahen and athletic therapist James Borrelli, both of whom left Monday for the World Under-17 Challenge that starts Sunday at Dawson Creek and Fort St. John, B.C. Canada has three entries in the eight-team tournament.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

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