The Sudbury Wolves travelled to North Bay on Sunday to take on the Battalion and wound up falling 6-5 in overtime.
North Bay netminder Charlie Robertson made some outstanding saves over the course of the game, stopping 25 of 30 total shots, while Wolves’ netminder Kevyn Brassard was 37/43 between the pipes for Sudbury. The Battalion were 2/4 on the power play, while the Wolves finished 0/4.
The win improves North Bay’s record to 45-17-2-1 and drops Sudbury’s record to 29-27-6-3. Sitting seventh in the Ontario Hockey League’s Eastern Conference, the Wolves have clinched a playoff spot. Meanwhile, North Bay sits second in the East and second overall in the OHL.
Battalion forward Josh Bloom opened the scoring, notching his first of three on the night at 8:46 of the first to give North Bay a 1-0 lead. Kyle McDonald made it 2-0 for North Bay at 14:46 of the first.
Sudbury would get one back before the period ended when David Goyette and Andre Anania teamed up to feed Kocha Delic who found the back of the net.
The second period opened with North Bay up 2-1. The Battalion would make it 3-1 at 6:51 of the second thanks to Matvey Petrov.
The teams would battle back and forth for much of the period until 17:21 when Nikita Tarasevich would make it 4-1.
The Wolves found their fire in the dressing room after the second and came out for the third period ready to deal some damage.
Less than a minute into the final frame, Landon McCallum would score his 16th of the season, assisted by Goyette and Matthew Mania, to cut North Bay’s lead in half, 4-2.
Bloom would notch his second of the game for North Bay just past the five-minute mark to make it 5-2 for the Battalion.
Then, Sudbury would go on an unanswered three-goal tear to send the game to OT.
Chase Coughlan scored his eighth of the season at 6:18 (assisted by Anania and Nathan Villeneuve) to make it 5-3.
Then at 8:47 Coughlan would do it again, scoring his ninth of the season (assisted by Marc Boudreau) to make it 5-4.
Then at 12:47 of the third, Goyette would score his 40th of the season (assisted by Delic) to tie the game at 5-5.
Despite a strong finish to the third, the Wolves weren’t able to turn things around. Two minutes into the extra period, Bloom would complete his hat trick to give North Bay the 6-5 win.
