Dogs fire up power play
All three goals scored on PP
By Darren Zary of The StarPhoenix
Huskies 3, T-birds 2
This week’s lesson: the power play.
After putting on a penalty-killing clinic last week, the University of Saskatchewan hockey Dogs moved to a different subject Friday against the visiting University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.
Although the Huskies hadn’t been lighting it up on the power play this season, they erupted for a quick three in 10 minutes, then hung on for a 3-2 victory over the T-birds in Canada West conference men’s hockey at Rutherford Rink.
“All of a sudden, our power play got going in that first period,” said U of S coach Dave Adolph, “but I really thought we put it on cruise after that. Our best players are our hardest-working players and once we got up 3-0, we had an awful lot of guys go cruising.
“When you start taking it easy, you start taking that second penalty all the time after the whistle.
We fell into a bit of a trap and they were trying to get back into the game.”
Still, call it a breakthrough game for the team’s power play, which had been struggling and relegated to the middle of the pack for much of the season even though the Huskies are ranked No. 1 in Canadian Interuniversity Sport.
Last Friday, the Huskies scored five short-handed markers, three of them in 35 seconds, in an 6-4 win over Calgary. This time around, the extra man also proved beneficial as Saskatchewan was 3-for-9 with the man-advantage.
Matt Girling, Mason Wallin and Dean Beuker each scored powerplay markers in the opening frame as the Dogs outshot the Birds 15-3.
“It was a scrappy game and we’re not used to playing in a small building like this,” said UBC coach Milan Dragicevic. “I was proud of the fact we battled back for the last 40 minutes. Two goals on a 5-on-3 and another on a 4-on-3, that was it right there.”
Girling cashed in from the slot at 7:28. Less than a minute later, Wallin got his stick on the puck which trickled in behind UBC goalie Gerry Festa at 8:17. At 9:55,
Beuker banked one in off Festa’s pads through the five-hole to make it three-zip after three power play goals in 10 minutes.
“They’re the No. 1 team in the country for a reason,” said Festa. “We weren’t ready to play and took some penalties. A team like that, you give them 5-on-3 after 5-on-3 and it’s going to end up in your net. Give our guys credit. We did battle hard and come back. We feel we at least deserved a point.
“Hopefully we can get a couple of points (in Game 2).”
Saskatchewan is 15-3-3. UBC slips to 7-11-1.
The teams meet again tonight at Rutherford. Game time is 7 p.m.
In the second period, Peter Hay had the lone goal for UBC with 13 seconds left on the clock. His power-play goal came during a twoman advantage. The T-birds added another one at 14:37 of the third on a goal by D-man Jarrett Winn.
“We had some opportunities at the end and their goalie made some great saves,” said Dragicevic.
Jeff Harvey made 19 saves for Saskatchewan. Festa, the former Saskatoon Blade, turned aside 36 for UBC.
dzary@sp.canwest.com
