Troops quiet IceDogs 6-2
Parker Vaughan scored two goals and added an assist to pace the North Bay Battalion to a 6-2 Ontario Hockey League victory Sunday over the Niagara IceDogs, ending the Troops’ three-game losing skid.
Bronson Ride had one goal and one assist and Kent Greer, Arseny Pronin and Ihnat Pazii also scored for North Bay, which got 28 saves from goaltender Mike McIvor before a crowd of 3,449 at Boart Longyear Memorial Gardens.
The Battalion, which again dressed 11 forwards and seven defencemen, evened its won-lost-extended record at 8-8-0 for 16 points, third in the Central Division. The Troops, who had scored one goal in each of their previous three games, erupted for that many in a span of 3:01 early in the final period.
Riley Patterson scored both goals for the IceDogs, who got chippier as the game progressed. Starting goaltender Vladislav Yermolenko surrendered five goals on 24 shots before Charlie Robertson came on in relief, stopping five of six shots.
Niagara, which had won five straight games since a 3-1 road loss Oct. 17 to the Erie Otters, is 10-5-1 for 21 points atop the division.
Vaughan broke a 2-2 tie at 1:34 of the final frame, darting down the left wing around Liam Spencer to the net and slipping the puck past Yermolenko. Ride had the sole assist on Vaughan’s fourth goal of the season.
Pronin struck 21 seconds later, taking a short pass in the slot from Evgeny Dubrovtsev and sweeping the disc home. Ryder Carey also assisted on Pronin’s fifth goal.
Pazii then scored from a near impossible angle deep on the left wing. Lirim Amidovksi assisted on Pazii’s third goal, which ended Yermolenko’s time in net in favour of Robertson, a onetime member of the Battalion.
Carter Kunopaski fought Reyth Smith, another former member of the Troops, at 4:52, earning a decisive win as each combatant drew a major.
Upon video review, a boarding major to Hayden Reid at 5:32 negated a would-be Niagara goal by Kevin He before bad blood resulted in offsetting penalties at 6:15, with Amidovski and the IceDogs’ Grayson Tiller notably receiving roughing, unsportsmanlike conduct and misconduct calls.
Defenceman Ride completed the scoring with his third goal at 8:31, a power-play drive from the left point that appeared to hit a defender on the way behind Robertson. Carey and Nolan Laird assisted.
NIagara, which trailed 1-0 after 20 minutes, tied it 51 seconds into the middle period when Patterson slid the puck into the gaping net from the left side on assists by Ryan Roobroeck and Artem Frolov.
Patterson scored his eighth goal during a two-man advantage at 5:30, sweeping the disc home on a setup similar to his first marker. NIagara’s He and Roobroeck drew assists with Vaughan off for crosschecking and Ride serving a North Bay bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Greer tied it on the power play at 16:03, just 21 seconds after Sebastian Dell’Elce went off for holding. Defenceman Greer stepped in from the mid blue line and wired the puck through traffic for his fourth goal, assisted by Nick Wellenreiter and Vaughan.
Vaughan connected at 12:00 of the first period. Lincoln Edwards centred the puck from the left wing to Jax Pereira, with Vaughan grabbing it and knocking it home from the slot. Edwards made his OHL debut, and Pereira was credited with his first OHL assist.
The Battalion starts a three-game road trip against the Flint Firebirds at 7 p.m. Friday. The game can be seen live in North Bay on YourTV Channels 12 and 700.
BATTALION BULLETS: Military Appreciation Day presented by Gen7 Fuel featured the Military Wives Choir singing the U.S. and Canadian national anthems and the playing of the Last Post … The second of six meetings is Dec. 7 at Niagara … The Battalion went 2-for-5 on the power play. Niagara was 1-for-4 … Opening lines had Ethan Procyszyn centring left winger Laird and right winger Wellenreiter, Pazii pivoting left winger Amidovski and right winger Vaughan and Dubrovtsev centring left winger Pronin and right winger Carey. Centre Pereira and left winger Edwards had various linemates … Defence pairings were Ride with Brandt Harper, Aaron Enright with Greer and Jonathan Kapageridis with Adrian Manzo. Kunopaski was the seventh blueliner … The Battalion was without Briir Long, Declan Gallivan, Cam Warren, Ryder Cali and Shamar Moses … Edwards, a fifth-rounder in the 2025 OHL Priority Selection, was called up from the junior A Cobourg Cougars. He has eight goals and seven assists for 15 points in 17 games with Cobourg after a 2024-25 season with the Don Mills Flyer U16s when he scored 44 goals and earned 56 assists for 100 points in 74 games … Among the missing for Niagara was Ryerson Edgar, a first-rounder in April and a Canada Red teammate of Warren at the U17 World Challenge … Smith, a 2023 fifth-rounder by North Bay, faced his former teammates for the first time since a June 13 trade … Brendan Kane and Tyson Stewart were the referees.
