Coach Stan Butler wanted to see a response by his players after their season opening loss. For about 23 minutes he got his wish, but from there on in it wasn’t a pretty sight. The North Bay Battalion built up a 3-1 lead on the back of a smooth transition game and capitalizing on their chances.
Steve Harland collected his first goal of the season at 7:21 of the first period. After the Rangers tied the game, the Battalion went back to the attack, this time on the power play, with Justin Brazeau screening Kitchener goaltender Dawson Carty as Brady Lyle’s seeing-eye point shot at 16:14 made its way into the back of the net. After Maurizio Collela scored on a breakaway just over a minute into the second period, the Rangers took over, scoring five straight goals and running away with the 6-3 victory.
Stan Butler said the disappointing thing is the Battalion went up 3-1, and were playing well. But then a couple of mental mistakes doomed them. Thilander fumbles the puck and then they score a goal, and then Lyle goes and does the same thing and it’s 3-3. Butler said instead of digging down and responding in a positive way, they basically reverted to playing the way we played last game. Butler added there a long way from solidifying their hockey team and they’ve got to make some tough decisions and hurt some people’s feelings.
