Austin Connelly, For MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Captain Cam Gotaas had a goal and three assists to increase his team-leading points total to 17 as he led the MacEwan Griffins to a decisive 8-1 victory over the Portage College Voyageurs in Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference men's hockey action Friday night at the Downtown Community Arena.
"I thought I had my legs tonight and when you have two good players like (Nic) Correale and (Bryan) Arneson, it makes life easy out there – we were rolling tonight," said Gotaas.
With the victory, MacEwan moves to 8-3-0-0 while keeping pace with league leaders NAIT (10-1-0-0) and Red Deer College (9-1-1-0), who also won on Friday night. Portage remains winless and in last place in the standings at 0-10-1-0.
"Cam is a guy who always shows up when you need him the most," said interim head coach Sean Ringrose. "It always seems to be a time when he steps up and scores a big goal or makes a great play – that's what leaders do, and he showed that tonight."
The Griffins would break through first with Chase Miller's third goal of the season off a slick feed from Austin Yaremchuk, who whipped around the net, and found crease-crasher Miller, who quickly went high blocker side 9:14 into the first.
MacEwan didn't wait long to double their lead, as Payton McIsaac potted his first ACAC career goal just 15 seconds later on a similar play, this time with Gotaas playing setup man.
"It felt really good, all in all, it was nice to finally get that monkey off my back," said McIsaac, who added a second goal later in the contest, scoring MacEwan's seventh tally of the game.
The Voyageurs cut into the deficit 11:41 into the second period when Shane Sherban was able to squeak it between Marc-Olivier Daigle's shoulder and the post on a sharp angle from the right faceoff dot.
"They definitely had a pushback there when the score was 2-0 and we took our foot off the gas a bit," said Ringrose. "They were able to create some offence and score a goal, so it was important for us to get back to competing and playing the right way."
Again, it was Gotaas leading that charge as he restored a two-goal MacEwan lead with 5:48 remaining in the second period when he streaked down the left-wing and wired a quick wrister past Voyageurs goalie Jacob Gnidziejko.
Kole Gable made it 4-1 just over two minutes later when potted a rebound off his original wrister which was blocked.
"We were able to respond and get a couple of quick ones, started to roll a little bit and created some momentum," said Ringrose.
Before the period was done, the Griffins led 5-1 as Gotaas fed Arneson in the slot.
MacEwan would pile it on in the third period as Brett Smythe made it 6-1 just 2:01 in, McIsaac made it 7-1 halfway through and Arneson capped the scoring with 5:31 remaining.
Correale chipped in three helpers, while Arneson also hit three points on the night with an assist to go with two goals.
Daigle stopped 20 shots in the victory while Gnidziejko stopped 53 of the shots he faced.
MacEwan will look to extend their five-game winning streak intact on Saturday when they visit Portage in Lac La Biche, Alta. (7 p.m., ACAC TV).
