North Bay took this one 5-2, and the shape of it was simple: after trading four goals in a wide-open first period, the Battalion shut the door and never gave it back. The last two periods were a 3-0 run in regulation.
The teams were even at 2-2 through twenty minutes, both sides scoring twice. North Bay edged ahead 3-2 with the only goal of the middle frame, and that lead held up as the turning point, with Mississauga unable to answer over the final forty.
The number that tells it: 3-0 across the second and third periods. After the opening-period track meet, the Steelheads were blanked the rest of the way, and North Bay's two-goal third closed it out.