The Sudbury Wolves’ season ended Thursday evening. The Pack were at home April 18 for game four of round two in a must-win situation against the North Bay Battalion.
Unfortunately for the Wolves and the fans, it wasn’t meant to be, as the Battalion eliminated Sudbury to advance to the Ontario Hockey League Eastern Conference Finals.
It took less than 30 seconds for North Bay to score their first goal of the game, with Sandis Vilmanis scoring his third goal of the playoffs to give the Battalion a very early 1-0 lead.
At the 2:23 mark of the opening period, with North Bay on the power play, Dalyn Wakely scored his 10th goal of the playoffs, opening up a 2-0 lead for North Bay.
With 2:08 to go in the first, North Bay increased their lead even further, thanks to Vilmanis’ second goal of the game, and after the first 20 minutes of play the game was well in hand for North Bay with the Troops leading the Wolves by a score of 3-0.
Sudbury Wolves head coach Ken MacKenzie replaced Vondras with Marcus Vandenberg to start the second period, and while the Wolves didn’t score in the second period, the move paid off in their own end of the rink, as Vandenberg didn’t allow any goals in the second period, with the score still 3-0 for North Bay with one period remaining in the hockey game.
It wasn’t until there was 4:37 remaining in the third period with Wakely’s second goal of the game, increasing North Bay’s lead to 4-0.
Vilmanis completed the hat trick with 2:50 remaining in the game on the empty net to seal the game, and the series win, for North Bay, who won the game 5-0 and the series 4-0.
The loss sees the Sudbury Wolves’ 2023-2024 Ontario Hockey League season come to an end as the team looks ahead to the off season and the 2024-2025 season.
Super fan Robert McCarthy covers Sudbury Wolves and Sudbury Five games for Sudbury.com. Got a question for Robert? Email it to [email protected].
