Huskies scratch out win through rash of penalties

Darren Zary, The StarPhoenix
Published: Saturday, September 29, 2007
Huskies 4, Cougars 2

Opposites detract.

For whatever reason, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies don't always play their best against provincial rival University of Regina Cougars.

Email to a friend

While the Dogs tend to bring the best out of the Cats, the Cougars sometimes bring the worst out of the Huskies.

On Friday, in their Canada West conference season-opening game at Rutherford Rink, the Huskies were hoping to change that but, instead, spent the first half of the game killing penalties.

In the end, however, the defending Canada West champions prevailed with a 4-2 victory. The two teams meet again tonight at the Brandt Centre in Regina.

"It's good to get ice time, but I don't want it that much if it means we're short-handed all the time," said Huskies winger Jason Wagar. "We got in a little trouble. We weren't playing as a team, totally and we took a lot of penalties. We'll be better.

"It's the U of S/U of R rivalry. It's always going to be tight. They play hard -- always."

The Dogs jumped out to an early 2-0 lead despite spending much of the first frame killing penalties, including a four-minute, two-man disadvantage.

Brad Erickson finished off a centring pass from Myles Zimmer to make it 1-0 at 5:18. Derek Endicott got credit for a pinball goal at 13:23, making it 2-0.

Regina cut that in half when rookie Kyle Ross, who played for the Regina Pats in the WHL, scored on the power play at 11:08 of the second period.

"You're against a pretty good team that won the league last year, so you're in for a good battle," said U of R coach Blaine Sautner. "It was a 2-1 lead going into the third and we gave ourselves a chance to win.

"A couple of bad turnovers on our part and the game got away from us a bit."

In the third, Curtis Austring's nifty back-hander fooled Cougars goalie Adam Ward at 2:56. Captain Brent Twordik supplied the back-breaker with a bank shot off Ward at 9:21 to make it 4-1.

"We took a two-goal lead and got some momentum," said Twordik, who earlier was denied on a breakaway with a save that deflected off the crossbar.

Ryan Cruse of the Cougars scored a power-play marker with four seconds in the game to round out the scoring.

"There were a lot of penalties in the first period and they capitalized on their chances, but unfortunately we didn't," said Regina forward Cane Pearpoint. "I don't think we have to change our game a whole lot."

Huskies rookie Casey Lee had the best scoring chance in the opening two minutes, but was stopped on a breakaway by Ward.

dzary@sp.canwest.com