MacEwan Athletics

RED DEER – After taking a period to knock off some rust accumulated during their bye week, the MacEwan Griffins cranked up the jets and churned past the Red Deer College Kings 6-2 on Friday night.

It's an important bounce-back win for the defending ACAC champions, who had lost twice to NAIT in their last action out on Oct. 20-21.

"We didn't start very well. We were just OK in the first period," said head coach Michael Ringrose of Friday's win at the Penhold Multiplex. "But we were able to right the ship in between the first and the second. We were much better from that point forward.

"Guys were moving and skating and it was definitely a bounce-back from a couple weeks ago against NAIT."

After spotting RDC a 1-0 lead, the Griffins scored a pair of short-handed goals in the second period – by Brett Smythe and Taylor Mulder – to take a 2-1 advantage into the final frame.

Tyler Morrison and Jacob Schofield scored goals just over a minute apart early in the third to put the game out of reach. Nakehko Lamothe also tallied for the Griffins before Smythe added his second of the game in the dying seconds.

With the result a foregone conclusion, RDC got a late one from Scott Ferguson.

No less than 12 Griffins players hit the scoresheet, including a two-assist outing from Austin Yaremchuk.

"It's nice when you can spread out the scoring throughout the lineup," said Ringrose. "It makes you harder to play against. We're certainly happy with the contributions we got up and down our lineup tonight."

Christopher Wray made 21 saves for the win as the Griffins improved to 3-4-0. RDC, outshot 34-23 in the contest, falls to 4-3-0. The teams will meet in the rematch in Edmonton on Saturday (6 p.m., Downtown Community Arena).

"It's coming," said Ringrose. "We're coming off two weeks off, so it took us a while to get the engine going again. But we got it going and we're looking to carry that forward into tomorrow night."