Austin Connelly, For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Gone in 28 seconds.
That's how long it took for the MacEwan's lead to evaporate in the middle of the third period on Friday night as they suffered a 3-2 defeat to the visiting UAlberta-Augustana Vikings.
The MacEwan Griffins weren't able to extend their two-game win streak to three, suffering a close defeat at the hands of the Augustana Vikings on Friday night at the Downtown Community Arena.
MacEwan held a 2-1 lead well into the third period before the wheels fell off.
UAA's Carter Danczak converted a pass through the crease to tie the game with 9:22 remaining before Lukas Biensch capitalized on some miscommunication behind the net, grabbing his own rebound after a wraparound short-handed chance and beating Marc-Olivier Daigle for the game-winner.
"We had control of the game and then we made a few mental errors, some lapses in our game and we are a young team, so we need to learn how to play 60 minutes, play the right way all the time," said interim head coach Sean Ringrose.
"It's a learning experience for us to continue to grow and know that we can't give all the chances to a veteran team or they're eventually going to put them in the back of our net."
The loss ended a two-game winning streak for the Griffins after they swept Concordia last weekend and dropped their record to 3-2. UAA improves to 2-3.
Daigle was brilliant early and often for the Griffins, making 33 saves on the night, including a ridiculous cross-crease pad save on a late Vikings powerplay to deny the Vikings an insurance goal.
"He made some big games when he needed to, we made some mistakes and he kept us in the game a couple of times and it was unfortunate we left him out to dry for a couple of goals," said Ringrose.
Marc-Olivier Daigle made 33 saves on Friday night (Joel Kingston photography).
The best of Vikings goalie Curtis Skip's 32 saves on the night came when he robbed Bryan Arneson with a glove save on a one-timer in the slot with less than two minutes remaining.
Chase Miller opened the scoring for the Griffins with the first goal of his ACAC career 14:24 into the game on a beautiful individual play – stealing the puck at centre-ice and quickly moving past a Vikings defender before sniping home a glove high wrist shot.
"A saw an opportunity to jump when the D-man missed the pass and was able to get it past the goalie," said Miller.
After a great forechecking shift from Miller, Ryan McKinnon went bar down from the slot with 6:58 left in the second period to put MacEwan up 2-0.
"We've been working on getting pucks to the wingers, chipping it in deep and looking for a guy in the slot and we executed it perfectly," said Miller. "McKinnon with a nice shot post so that was nice to see."
Just over a minute later, the Vikings were able to cut the deficit in half when a Quinton Sudom point shot made its way through the crowd in front and past a screened Daigle.
Daigle was on fire all night long and some of his highlights included a sharp blocker save on a 2-0 break where he stretched post-to-post to deny Vikings forward Austin Kozlak and a flashy glove save on a two-on-one break.
"Daigle is game in and game out the best player on the ice and everyone knows he's the best goalie in the league, so he lives up to that expectation and it's pretty nice to have him," said Miller.
The Griffins will visit the Vikings on Saturday in Camrose (6 p.m., ACAC TV).
