Do you believe in miracles?
Dogs score five short-handed goals, three in 35 seconds
By Darren Zary of The StarPhoenix
Huskies 6, Dinos 4
They went top shelf three times and five-hole once.
Four short-handed goals in 3:31. Three of them — would you believe? — during a span of 35 seconds, which is likely a Canada West conference record.
The final total? Count ’em: five shorthanded goals by the hometown squad.
It will go down as the greatest comeback at Rutherford Rink in the past decade as the University of Saskatchewan Huskies erased a 4-0 deficit and battled back for a 6-4 victory over the University of Calgary Dinos in Canada West men’s hockey action Friday night.
“No, you don’t ever see something like that,” said U of S forward Dean Beuker, who had two short-handed goals in 12 seconds.
“We were fortunate enough that we came back after such a deficit. We put ourselves in that hole and they kind of let us climb out of it. That’s got to be a big disappointment for them, but hopefully a big building block for us.
“Yet I guarantee they’ll come twice as hard (Saturday).”
The teams meet again tonight. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Dog House.
Saskatchewan has a 13-3-3 record. Calgary fell to 7-10-2.
“We got away in the first period from some things we’re pretty good at and it resulted in our net three times,” said U of S coach Dave Adolph, nearly left speechless after the game. “I didn’t let them forget about it. Calgary is too good a team to not be prepared to play.”
After their 14-game undefeated streak got snapped last weekend in Regina, the Dogs were hoping to get back on track and did just that despite a sleepy first period.
Alex Lapointe opened the scoring for Calgary at 12:14, jumping on a big rebound by Saskatchewan goalie Jeff Harvey. Just 54 seconds later, Travis Friedly scored for the Dinos. He tapped in a rebound past Harvey, who had lost his balance in the crease.
Calgary rookie Jevon Desautels, a native of Saskatchewan whom the Huskies tried to recruit in the off-season, picked the top corner to make it 3-0 in a stretch of 2:02.
Despite outshooting the Dinos 13-11, the Dogs couldn’t solve goalie Scott Talbot early. Keegan McAvoy was stopped in his tracks on a breakaway and Beuker was foiled on a breakaway after losing control of the puck in front of Talbot.
In the second period, the Dogs poured it on, but beat Talbot only twice, even though they outshot the Dinos 20-3. Beuker scored on the power play at 3:01 and captain Brent Twordik netted a short-handed tally at 16:50 to cut Calgary’s lead to 4-2.
What followed in the third period was hard to believe.
Twordik started things off with his second short-handed goal, at 4:39. Beuker followed up with back-to-back shorthanded goals, the first at 5:02 — 23 seconds after Twordik’s effort — and the second at 5:14.
Trent Adamus scored short-handed at 8:45.
Things got rough at the end, resulting in a heavyweight battle between Desautels and big Huskies D-man Dean Serdachny, who landed a few solid lefts.
Talbot made 29 saves for the Dinos. Harvey stopped 20 shots for the Dogs.
Saskatchewan was 1-for-11 on the power play. Calgary was 1-for-10.
DOG TALES: During the break, the Dinos won a tournament at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., where they defeated Lake Superior State, St. Francis Xavier and host Lakehead . . . Saskatchewan was one of just two Canada West teams which did not play any games during the break . . . Huskies F Jeff Schmidt is out with a wrist injury. He was replaced in the lineup by rookie Preston Mosewich, who was making his Canadian Interuniversity Sport debut.
