OHL North Bay Battalion

Victorious Battalion Secures Home Ice

Published on March 14, 2014 under Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
North Bay Battalion News Release


NORTH BAY, Ont. - Barclay Goodrow scored two goals and Jake Smith made 20 saves for the shutout to lead the North Bay Battalion to a 3-0 victory Thursday night over the Oshawa Generals that clinched home-ice advantage for the Troops in the first round of Ontario Hockey League playoffs.

Zach Bratina also scored before a crowd of 3,836 as the Battalion won a fourth consecutive game to improve its won-lost-extended record to 36-24-6 for 78 points, good for first place in the Central Division and the second seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Battalion can finish no lower than fourth in the conference, guaranteeing that the Troops will open a conference quarterfinal series with the first two games at Memorial Gardens.

North Bay visits the Sudbury Wolves, second in the division at 32-22-11 for 75 points, at 7:30 p.m. Friday with a chance to clinch the Central title with a victory. There is no television coverage of the Sudbury game.

Oshawa, which rested Scott Laughton, the team ' s leading goal scorer, and No. 1 goaltender Daniel Altshuller, got 28 saves from North Bay product Ken Appleby. The Generals are 41-19-6 for 88 points atop the East Division and conference.

"We played a pretty solid game," said Battalion coach Stan Butler. "Oshawa is a pretty good team, and they always play hard. Appleby had a pretty strong game tonight, and we just had to find ways to score goals against them.

"We had a big effort out of some of our top players. Nick Paul's line was outstanding, and our defence did a really good job. Goodrow scoring that shorthanded goal was huge for us. Jake was sharp tonight. He made the saves he needed to make and he was in the right position when he needed to be."

Said Goodrow: "We knew they had some key players out, but they ' re still a really good team, and we knew we had to play well. We got a really good game out of Smith. He's been huge for us."

Penalty killer Goodrow scored the only goal the Battalion would need when he blocked a Mitchell Vande Sompel pass, outraced Michael Dal Colle into the Oshawa zone and beat Appleby between the legs at 16:02 of the first period. It was Goodrow's sixth shorthanded strike of the season, tying him with Eric Locke of the Saginaw Spirit for the league lead.

Smith produced solid stops on Hunter Smith in the fifth minute and on a Dal Colle shot from the right-wing circle in the eighth. Smith, who got his right arm on a Dal Colle drive in the 11th minute, turned aside a Jacob Busch shot off the right wing in the 19th.

Goodrow scored his team-leading 32nd goal at 5:56 of the second period, tipping a slick pass from Ben Thomson between Appleby's pads after slipping alone into the goalmouth.

Bratina struck for his 11th goal of the season and sixth with the Troops at 8:07. Brett McKenzie charged to the net with defender Chris Carlisle in tow and got off a shot that Appleby stopped, but Bratina swatted home the rebound.

The Battalion outshot Oshawa 13-5 in the period. Appleby slid across his crease to foil Goodrow on a breakaway attempt in the 16th minute. The visitors' best chance came in the 11th when Alex Lepkowski failed to convert into an open net from the lip of the crease with Josh Sterk parked on top of Smith.

The Battalion forged an 8-5 edge in shots in the scoreless third period. Appleby was tested twice by Thomson, turned aside a hard shot from the high slot from Alex Henriksson and stopped a long-range attempt by Goodrow on the power play in the 19th minute.

Stephen Templeton, grandson of longtime North Bay Centennials coach Bert Templeton, made his OHL debut. Defenceman Templeton, a Waterdown, Ont., resident, was a sixth-round pick by Oshawa in the 2013 OHL Priority Selection.

BATTALION BULLETS: A moment of silence was observed for Terry Trafford, a Saginaw Spirit centre, whose body was found Tuesday in Saginaw. Bratina, acquired from the Spirit on Dec. 27, once was a teammate of Trafford ... The Battalion played its 33rd home game, drawing even with road dates for the first time after opening the schedule with nine away games because of arena renovations ... Smith, in a fifth straight start, recorded his fourth shutout of the season and his second in three games ... In 311 games, Goodrow has 126 goals and 99 assists for 225 points, two more than Raffi Torres and third in franchise history ... Vincent Praplan saw the end of a six-game points streak in which he had two goals and nine assists for 11 points ... Miles Liberati had a five-game points streak snapped. Liberati, who had scored in the previous three games, had four goals and one assist for five points in the run ... Bratina has a four-game points streak in which he has two goals and three assists for five points ... Dylan Blujus and Marcus McIvor each played a 254th game, tying Sam Carrick for sixth in franchise annals ... Each team went 0-for-5 on the power play ... The Battalion scratched Kyle Locke, Mike Baird, Jared Steege and Calvin Gomes ... The OHL recognized Battalion defenceman Riley Bruce on Thursday as the Central Division's academic player of the month for February ... McKenzie turned 17 on Wednesday and Gomes 18 on Thursday ... The Battalion went 2-1-1 against Oshawa this season ... The referees were Scott Oakman and Matt Parlette.

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Ontario Hockey League Stories from March 14, 2014


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