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OHL North Bay Battalion

Troops Secure Opener on Hargrave's Goal

March 25, 2016 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
North Bay Battalion News Release


NORTH BAY, Ont. - Brett Hargrave scored at 7:09 of the third period to lift the North Bay Battalion to a 2-1 victory over the Peterborough Petes on Friday night in the first game of their opening-round Ontario Hockey League playoff series.

Mike Amadio also scored and goaltender Jake Smith made 20 saves before a crowd of 3,392 that saw the third-place Battalion draw first blood in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal.

Logan DeNoble scored for sixth-place Peterborough, which got 32 saves from goaltender Matthew Mancina.

Game 2 is scheduled at Memorial Gardens at 2 p.m. Sunday.

"We've only got one win, and now we need three more," said Battalion coach Stan Butler. "They're a good team and they're experienced. Sunday is a new day, and both teams will look over the game tape and try to look for ways to gain an advantage. It's the first team to four, and we'd like to hold home ice."

Butler, who worried in recent days about roster numbers, dressed a full complement of 20, including 12 without previous playoff experience.

"We had a lot of young guys who were playoff rookies, and our young guys played very well. Our older guys know, but we told our young guys, that you have to do the little things and any play in the game can be the difference between winning and losing. Look at today's game: The difference was one goal."

North Bay native Hargrave broke a 1-1 tie when he took a feed from Zach Shankar and snapped the puck over Mancina's glove from the left hash marks. Steve Harland also assisted on the first playoff goal of Hargrave's OHL career. Shankar and Harland each earned his first playoff point in his postseason debut.

Smith shut the door on the Petes the rest of the way, coming up with a key late stop on Steven Lorentz and foiling good chances for Lorentz and Greg Betzold with Mancina on the bench for a sixth attacker.

Shankar hit the right post trying to score into the empty net in the final seconds, with Mathew Santos and Peterborough's Dominik Masin engaging in a fierce battle for the loose puck.

The Petes scored on their first shot, connecting on the power play at 11:39 of the first period. Jonathan Ang, who interfered with Amadio off the draw, won a faceoff to Smith's right and fed the puck to Matthew Timms, whose shot from the left point was tipped by DeNoble.

The Troops, unable to score on two previous power plays, struck shorthanded at 14:23 as Amadio got behind Timms and swept the rebound of a Cam Dineen lob around Mancina from the lip of the crease. Kyle Wood also assisted as Dineen earned his first OHL playoff point in his postseason debut.

The Battalion held an 11-4 edge in shots. Mancina thwarted Hargrave in front in the fifth minute, challenged Dineen as he drove to the net in the 11th, stopped Wood from the slot in the 17th and slid to deny Amadio off the right wing in the 18th. Amadio fired wide on a shorthanded breakaway in the 15th minute, drawing a slashing penalty.

North Bay dominated the scoreless second period, territorially and on the shot clock, with a 15-9 edge.

The Battalion enjoyed two power plays, but Mancina was solid against Wood, Amadio, Dineen and Brett McKenzie, while Maurizio Colella put the carom of a Shankar shot off the right post. Mancina, strong in the 12th minute as Colella tried to convert an Amadio rebound, was tight to the post as Santos drove to the net off the right wing in the 17th.

The Petes' best chance came in the fifth minute when Josh Maguire put the puck over the net on a breakaway. Smith made two late stops on DeNoble, including sprawling to stop a shot at the left post in the 18th minute.

BATTALION BULLETS: North Bay and Peterborough meet in the OHL playoffs for a third time. The Centennials swept a four-game first-round series in 1991 before taking a 1992 league semifinal in five games. The Battalion faces the Petes in the postseason for the second time, having swept a 2009 first-round series when based in Brampton ... The Battalion went 0-for-5 on the power play. Peterborough was 1-for-3 ... Apart from Dineen, Shankar and Harland, others making their playoff debuts were Kyle Potts, Justin Brazeau, Jacob Ball, Max Kislinger, Daniil Vertiy, Brad Chenier, Brady Lyle and Mark Shoemaker. Shankar and Shoemaker were on the roster last year but didn't play ... Before joining North Bay this season, Colella had three playoff games with the Belleville Bulls, and Hargrave had five with the Sarnia Sting and Owen Sound Attack ... Defenceman Riley Bruce and left winger Vertiy returned to action after missing the end of the schedule ... Forward Chenier joined the Troops after the junior A Rayside-Balfour Canadians' season ended ... Ball, a Lift Lock City native, and German import Kislinger played for the Peterborough Petes minor midgets, last season and in 2013-14 respectively ... The Battalion was without Jake Ramalho and Zach Poirier ... Forward Jamie Huber, who skated with the Troops this week, wasn't signed.

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