Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Wave after wave, the MacEwan Griffins just kept coming at the Portage College Voyageurs in a relentless and thoroughly dominant onslaught at the Downtown Community Arena on Saturday night.
When the clock finally hit zeros, the final count was 9-1 in favour of the home side and could have been worse if not for a few highlight-reel saves from Voyageurs netminder Jacob Gnidziejko.
"It was a more complete effort tonight than last night, for sure," said MacEwan head coach Mike Ringrose, whose team also beat the Voyageurs 9-2 on Friday in Lac La Biche, Alta. "We had contributions up and down the lineup and that's what we're going to need next weekend against NAIT and into the playoffs, so that's good to see."
With the result, MacEwan improved to 19-6-1-0 and remained a point back of Red Deer College (19-5-2-0) in the race for second place and the coveted first-round playoff bye. Both teams have one regular season weekend remaining with the Griffins against NAIT (23-3-0-0) for a two-game set and the Kings facing SAIT (12-10-1-3).
Portage falls to 0-24-2-0 with the defeat.
Bryan Arneson led the Griffins with a natural hat trick – scoring the team's sixth, seventh and eighth goals spanning between the second and third periods – and added an assist for a four-point night.
"I think I had one in junior when I was 19, but it was in exhibition, so it didn't really count," he said of the first official natural hattie of his hockey career.
"I'm playing with two really good guys – Corrs (Nicolas Correale) and Camo (Cam Gotaas). They just find me when I find the open ice. I know my job is to shoot the puck. It is special, but we need points to hopefully catch second spot here. It's nice, but the win matters more."
Six others hit double digits for the Griffins, including Zach Aston, who had a goal and two assists. In fact, only three Griffins players didn't have a point on the night, proving just how balanced the team's scoring attack was.
"I think every (line) was able to get in on the scoring and that needs to be our identity," said Ringrose. "We're not a team that's going to stack a line and come at you top heavy. We've always been a team that plays four lines deep and runs our depth out the gate, and wears teams down by playing the right way consistently. We got those efforts – four lines were working tonight, and the result speaks for itself."
The Griffins wasted little time gaining an advantage, scoring twice about a minute apart early in the first period as Chase Miller finished off a two-on-one pass from Brett Smythe 2:26 into the game before Gotaas snapped home a snipe off the left wing at 3:32.
Before the first period was out, though, Gnidziejko stole the show by stopping Miller on a point-blank shot from 10 feet out, denied Colin Schmidt's attempt to tap a short-handed two-on-one pass through his legs and then whipped out the right pad to stone-cold rob Smythe on a back side one-timer.
Eventually, the Griffins got to him, though, by never letting up. Aston put MacEwan up 3-1 just 1:49 into the second period with a laser after walking in off the point.
Portage's David Pryde responded just over a minute later, though, for the only shot that would elude Thomas Davis – a high glove side rip off a left-wing rush. Davis made several other solid stops in the contest to finish with 27 saves.
"I thought Tommy was good – he made the stops when he needed to make them," said Ringrose of MacEwan's player of the game. "There were a couple of times we maybe lapsed in our D zone and he was there. I was happy with our goaltending all weekend."
After Pryde's goal, the Griffins needed just a minute to regain a three-goal lead when Andrew Kartusch snuck in from the point to pot a rebound.
Andrew Kartusch snuck in from the point and potted a rebound for MacEwan's fourth goal of the contest early in the second period (Jake Bradley photo).
Jordan Taupert made it 5-1 less than two minutes after that, finishing off a pretty tic-tac-toe three-way passing play with Payton McIsaac and Zach Webb.
By then, we were into the Arneson show. With 5:57 left in the second period, he wheeled around the zone and snapped it in from the top of the left circle to make it 6-1.
His second of the game came with 47 seconds left in the frame when he got a piece of Brett Magee's point shot and it looped up and over the tendy before dropping behind the line.
Just three minutes into the third, "Arnie" completed the hat trick with a definitive bar-down rocket off a one-time pass from Correale that featured him celebrating by putting his stick back in the holster.
"Not sure we needed the celebration at 8-1," said Ringrose with a grin. "But he's obviously a one-shot scorer. He was able to find some ice and get three tonight. He's a veteran guy and he's the guy who had the ability to put the puck in the net, so good on him."
Ryan McKinnon capped it off with MacEwan's ninth of the contest with 42 seconds left – finishing off another cross-crease one-time pass on the powerplay.
MacEwan next host NAIT on Friday (7 p.m., Downtown Community Arena), which will be Senior Night. The Griffins will then visit the Ooks on Saturday, Feb. 29 (6 p.m., NAIT Arena) in the regular season finale for both teams.
