AROUND OUA: Perugini stops 40, Lions win battle of the best in the West
LONDON, Ont. – Chris Perugini made 40 saves and the league's best penalty kill lived up to it's billing on Saturday, as the York Lions battled to a 3-2 victory over Western at Thompson Arena.
SCOREBOARD
Perugini stops 40, Lions win battle of the best in the West
LONDON, Ont. – Chris Perugini made 40 saves and the league's best penalty kill lived up to it's billing on Saturday, as the York Lions battled to a 3-2 victory over Western at Thompson Arena.
York's game-tying and game-winning goals looked a bit similar—both coming on second chances in tight just over five minutes apart in the second period. Peter Delmas didn't have much of a chance on either goal and his coach didn't fault him for the breakdown.
"We didn't play very good defence there for a couple of minutes in the second," said Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer. "Small gap in our structure and it gave them a couple of really good opportunities around the net, which they buried. Delmas made the initial save on both of them, unfortunately we just didn't do a great job supporting him.
"That got them in the lead and we just couldn't fight back and get another one."
The loss snaps Western's five-game win streak and gives the Lions some space at the top of the OUA West Division standings. The two teams entered the game one point apart at the top of the West but York leaves London with a three-point cushion. Both teams have four games left on the schedule but Western will need some help to take over first.
"In this league when everybody's so good we just weren't good enough tonight," said Singer. "[York] has great structure, they play great defensively and … they got great goaltending tonight and that was probably the big difference."
Perugini can take a lot of credit for getting York two points. The veteran goaltender faced double-digit shots in each period, including a game-high 17 in a Western-dominated first. He helped York's league-leading penalty kill, now firing at 87.9%, shut out the Mustangs on all four of their power plays—one of which came with Delmas pulled in the third.
"[Perugini] made some big stops for them," said Mustangs forward Trevor Warnaar. "He came up big for them... [Delmas] still had a really good game but sometimes a goalie steals a game for you and I guess that happened tonight."
Warnaar had the second of Western's two goals in the first period, chipping the puck up to himself off an offensive-zone turnover and burying the puck over Perugini's shoulder. Warnaar's marker came four minutes after Cody Brown's opener, which saw him jump on a rebound and lift a backhander into the net—all while sliding on his knees.
The Lions cut Western's lead in half near the end of the frame with a power play goal from Derek Sheppard. That goal seemed to help York turn their game around and they would add to their special teams' success with a big kill with two men down near the end of the period.
"It wasn't good enough," said Singer of Western's power play on Saturday. "They got a power play goal, we didn't do a very good job. I thought it was better early in the game. It's tough to have those opportunities late and I really didn't think we got set. I think we had one shot in four minutes on the power play [in the third] and that's not good enough."
Still, it's hard to fault Western's power play when the Lions' penalty kill has been so solid this season. You could see why on Saturday, as York managed to box the Mustangs out whenever they moved into the slot and made a number of key blocks in tight. Most of Western's shots ended up coming from the perimeter and hit Perugini in the chest.
NOTES: Noah Schwartz had his point streak snapped but Shaun Furlong extended his to five games with an assist… Stephen Gaskin was back in the lineup for Western after being out with an injury for a bit… Western had just two coaches on the bench on Saturday, as David Kontzie and Jamie Baker were both absent. Former Mustang and current Graduate Assistant Adam McKee joined Singer on the bench for most of the game…
Source: Western Mustangs
Pompei prolific as McGill rallies to quell Queen's for 31st consecutive time
MONTREAL -- Mathieu Pompei of Laval, Que., tallied twice, including the game-winner at 16:36 of the final period as sixth-ranked McGill rallied from a two-goal deficit for a 3-2 triumph over Queen's in a "Renew The Rivalry" men's hockey contest that attracted 598 rowdy students to McConnell Arena, Saturday.
It was an early birthday present for the Redmen, who turn 139 years old on Sunday and the result marked McGill's 31st consecutive conquest over their long-time archrivals from Kingston, Ont. The Redmen are now 125-50-2 lifetime against the Gaels in a series that dates all the way back to 1895.
The Gaels had taken an early 2-0 lead on a couple of goals by Andrew Wiebe at 1:05 and Patrick McGillis at 3:47 of the opening period.
"We had some adversity to start the game down 2-0 in the first few minutes but stuck to the process of playing the right way," said Redmen bench boss Kelly Nobes, whose troops outshot Queen's by an incredible 56-28 margin, including 21-13 in the first period, 19-7 in the second and 16-8 in the third. Despite the lopsided play, McGill was in tough against Queen's all-Canadian netminder Kevin Bailie, who made 53 saves in a losing cause as the junior from Belleville, Ont., saw his record slip to 12-7 with a 1.99 goals-against average and a .946 save percentage.
"From that point on, we really just took control of the game and it was great to see that kind of response from our group, given that we've got a bunch of key guys out of the lineup. We set a list of eight objectives for the game and we met six of them. We really wanted to focus on the process tonight, not just the outcome but on the eight objectives. So I'm really pleased with how we went about winning the game."
The Redmen were thoroughly dominant in the middle stanza and struck twice. Rookie blueliner Dominic Talbot-Tassi potted his 11th, on a power-play at 11:42 and some six minutes later, as a McGill penalty was expiring, Pompei stole a puck at his blueline and raced on a breakaway the length of the ice to score an unassisted back-breaker at 17:55.
In the third period, just as overtime appeared to be looming, Pompei pounced on a rebound in the crease to net the game-winner at 16:36 of the final stanza.
"Pomps is playing great hockey and has got a lot of confidence," said Nobes of his veteran, a senior majoring in social work, who is now ranked second in the nation with 17 goals (six behind UQTR's Guillaume Asselin), three of them game-winners. "He's scoring a lot of big goals and is playing a 200-foot game that is really important for our team but also one of the reasons for his success. I'm very proud of him."
The 5-foot-7, 167-pound centre is also seventh in the CIS points race with 35 in 26 contests and now owns a career record of 59-62-121 in 143 games overall.
Initially, one of the assists on his game-deciding marker was credited to Samuel Labrecque and a PA announcement was made recognizing that Labrecque had established a new single-season points record for defencemen. But Labrecque said after the game that it was not his assist and a scoring change was made after video replay confirmed that freshmen Christophe Lalonde and Daniel Milne had set up the marker.
Labrecque, who had a helper on the first goal, is now tied for the team's single season records in both goals and assists by a blueliner. He continues to lead the CIS scoring race with a 15-27-42 record in 26 games, with two left before playoffs. He leads Carleton rookie Brett Welychka (13-26-39) by three points.
McGill was 1-for-4 on the power-play and is now second in the CIS with a 29.7 per cent success rate. They killed off six of seven shorthanded scenarios.
McGill rookie netminder Joe Fleschler made his second straight start in place of injured veteran Jacob Gervais-Chouinard. The 6-foot-5, 212-pound native of Summit, N.J., kicked out 26 of 28 shots for the victory, improving his record to 3-2.
McGill (20-5-1) now shares first-place in the OUA East with UQTR (20-3-1). The Redmen have clinched at least third-place but could still finish first or second. They have just two games remaining before playoffs, a home-and-home series with seventh-place Concordia (8-11-5), beginning on Feb. 5 at McConnell Arena. They will close out the season on Feb. 12 with the annual Ronald Corey Cup contest for local college hockey supremacy at the Ed Meagher Arena. Should McGill finish second and Concordia end up seventh, then the two cross-town rivals would meet in an OUA best-of-three quarter-final series, which is slated to open on Feb. 17.
It was a costly loss for the fifth-place Gaels (14-7-1), who have six games left on their schedule and could've caught the Redmen. Queen's can now finish anywhere from fourth to sixth. They have a tough three-games-in-four-nights stretch next weekend, begining with a home contest against RMC (3-17-3) on Feb. 4.
Source: McGill Redmen
Lakers sweep home and home with Vees
The Nipissing Lakers men's hockey team picked a great time to snap out of their mini-slump.
The Lakers swept a home-and-home series with the Laurentian Voyageurs, defeating them 5-4 in overtime last night on the road and doubling them up, 4-2 tonight on home ice.
Friday night, the Lakers needed some heroics late after surrendering the lead, but Saturday, they led from start to finish, cruising to their 10th victory of the season.
Colin Campbell continued his strong play, picking up a goal and an assist, making it a three point weekend for the speedy forward.
Nipissing grabbed the lead with goals five minutes apart in the first period.
First, it was Joel Herbert scoring yet again, grabbing his third point of the weekend as well.
Craig Campbell, who also had a solid weekend, earned one assist and Jimmy McDowell picked up the other.
Alex Morgan scored his first of the season, unassisted, about five minutes later to give the Lakers a 2-0 lead at the first intermission.
In the second, the teams traded goals.
Laurentian cut the lead in half with a goal early on, but just over two minutes later, Campbell scored to regain the two-goal lead.
Erik Robichaud and McDowell earned the helps on the third Nipissing goal of the game.
At the midway point of the third period, thanks to a power play goal, the Voyageurs cut the lead once again, scoring their second of the game.
Now in a one goal game, the Lakers sealed it with a goal with four minutes left thanks to Guillaume Naud, who put home the fourth tally of the game.
Campbell drew the only assist in the goal that proved to be the dagger.
Kirk Rafuse was solid in net, making 35 saves for his second win in a row.
Nipissing will remain on home ice, hosting the Carleton Ravens and UQTR Patriotes next weekend at Memorial Gardens.
Source: Nipissing Lakers
Thunderwolves edged by visiting Warriors
The Lakehead Thunderwolves had to rally for the second night in a row, but this time their efforts fell just short as they were edged 5-4 by the Waterloo Warriors in front of 2112 fans at the Fort William Gardens on Saturday night.
Both goalies – Devin Green for Lakehead and Mike Morrison for Waterloo – were tested early but nothing got past either of them in a scoreless first period.
The offensive floodgates opened early in the second, ignited by a short-handed goal by Lakehead's Kelin Ainsworth when he broke in alone on Morrison and deked him with a backhander 40 seconds into the period.
Waterloo's Mike Moffat evened the score just over a minute later with a hard shot from the face-off circle that beat Green low on the glove side.
Stephen Silas gave the Warriors the lead by finishing off a nice tic-tac-toe play while Waterloo held the man-advantage at 11:40, and then Matt Amadio and Colin Behenna added two more goals a minute apart to put the Warriors up by three with just under five minutes remaining in the period.
Justin Sefton narrowed the gap to 4-2 with a power play goal at 17:06 after the Wolves' defenceman jumped into the play to create an odd-man situation that he capitalized on, with assists going to Sam Schutt and Carson Dubchak.
The Wolves drew to within a goal at the seven-minute mark of the third period when Matt Alexander rifled the puck past Morrison on the blocker side after receiving a nice feed from David Quesnele, with Luke Maw also getting a helper.
Silas got his second tally of the night at the 12:11 mark to put Waterloo up 5-3, but Lakehead didn't quit.
With the Wolves already on a power play, Green was pulled for an extra attacker and the move paid off when Carson Dubchak fired a one-timer past Morrison with one minute left on the clock to narrow the gap to 5-4. Ainsworth and Jake Ringuette were credited with the assists.
Lakehead continued to apply the pressure and the Wolves were buzzing around the Waterloo net, but just couldn't convert and the Warriors held on to take the win.
Total shots on goal for the night were 41-31 for Waterloo.
The Molson three stars of the game were:
1. Colin Behenna, Waterloo
2. Kelin Ainsworth, Lakehead
3. Stephen Silas, Waterloo
The loss drops the Wolves' OUA record to 6-14-4 (10-16-5 overall) and makes their four remaining regular season games all must-wins in order to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Lakehead will go on the road next weekend for a two-game series with the Guelph Gryphons.
Source: Lakehead Thunderwolves
For the second time in seven days, the Lancer men's hockey team came away with a victory over the Ryerson Rams. On Saturday, the Lancers dominated the visiting Rams 7-1 at South Windsor Arena.
With the win, the Lancers now occupy the third spot in the OUA west division with 27 points, while the Rams are tied with the Laurier Golden Hawks with 24 points.
Steven Anthony potted his fourth and fifth goals of the season to go along with Kyle Hopes sixth, to give the Lancers a controlling three goal lead just 7:39 into the game. A power play blast from Brandon Devlin cut the lead to two and sent the Lancers into the dressing room with a 3-1 lead.
Dylan Denomme made it a 4-1 game just 6:09 into the second and was followed by Dylan Seguin and Chad Shepley, who contributed with goals of their own. The Lancers cruised into the second intermission with a commanding 6-1 lead.
Tyson Ness then rounded out the scoring with his ninth goal of the season, joining a list of six different Lancers to score on the night.
Lancers net-minder Blake Richard then locked things down in net on way to a 7-1 romping over the Rams.
Prior to the game, the Lancers honorured their graduating seniors Brett Babkirk, Eric Noel, Ryan Green, and Kenny Bradford.
The Lancers will hit the road next weekend for a pair of games against the Brock Badgers and Western Mustangs.
Source: Windsor Lancers
