Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – On the back skate right from the drop of the puck, the MacEwan Griffins ended up on the wrong end of a 9-0 blowout to the UBC Thunderbirds on Saturday night at the Downtown Community Arena.
The score was inflated by three late visitor powerplay goals after the T-Birds enjoyed a 5-on-3 powerplay for the final 3:41 when Neithan Salame and Ryley Appelt were assessed fighting majors.
"That's a very good team in our standings," said Griffins head coach Zack Dailey. "We took them to overtime (on Friday). Of course they're going to come with a better effort. They thought maybe we got lucky, so they're going to come with a better effort and we weren't ready to match that.
"They definitely lifted their game, they played a lot better today. We looked tired, didn't look desperate, didn't look like we cared enough. It showed in the score, for sure."
With the result, the Griffins fall to 8-15-1, but caught a break as Regina (8-14-2) lost 8-4 to Alberta to remain only one point ahead of them for the final playoff spot. Manitoba (8-15-1), however, moved into a tie with MacEwan for seventh after beating Trinity Western 7-6.
UBC (16-6-2) moved within a point of Mount Royal for third in the conference.
Saturday was an ugly one for the Griffins and it was capped with an even uglier finish as multiple fights broke out with 3:41 left following a hard collision along the boards. Not only did it leave the Griffins two men short and inflated the score, they earned a lecture from the coaching staff.
"We're not a program or a team that wants to hurt people," said Dailey. "That's not what we're about. We're not out there to make bad checks or anything and I think guys made some really selfish decisions tonight that cost the whole group. We had to kill a five-minute penalty and they got a lot of goals off that. Those are 100 per cent things that can be prevented by just playing the right way.
"My message to our guys is that's not what we're about. We want to win honestly, we want to lose with grace. We have to be good winners, good losers. That group was not a good loser tonight. That's something we addressed and is not acceptable in our program."
Former Edmonton Oil King Josh Williams scored four of UBC's nine goals, completing the hat trick at 11:45 of the third period. Tian Rask and Sasha Mutala each had two, while both Jordan Sandhu and Jack Wismer added three assists.
Thunderbirds goaltender Cole Schwebius made 22 saves for his second shutout of the season.
UBC's Tian Rask looks for an opening against MacEwan's Ashton Abel in the second period on Saturday. Rask scored twice for the T-Birds (Rebecca Chelmick photo).
Rask opened the scoring just 4:49 into the game when he got a breakaway pass from Sanhu and beat Ashton Abel blocker side. Mutala made it 2-0 less than two minutes later, capitalizing on a Griffins' giveaway in their own zone by roofing it short side.
Williams made it 3-0 and 4-0 in the second period off two more giveaways.
"I just think it comes down to execution," said Dailey. "They're plays guys can make. Unfortunately, today we had a ton of guys who had off games. Maybe you can recover if one or two guys have off games, but if 10 or 11 of your 18 skaters are not on, it's very tough to win games and it's tough to stay in games and compete.
"It's definitely something we'll go back to in practice, but it's stuff we can do and have shown we can do that for whatever reason we weren't able to execute tonight."
Trailing 4-0 after 40 minutes, workhorse starter Abel was given a break after stopping 28 of 32 for MacEwan. Thomas Davis came on in relief and the game devolved in front of his eyes as Mutala (off a deflection) and Williams (off another giveaway) made it 6-0.
Jake Kryski, Williams and Rask completed the rout with three powerplay goals in a span of two-and-a-half minutes on a 5-on-3.
For the Griffins, the missive is to learn from it and flush it as they get set for their final four regular season games, still very much in the playoff hunt. They face a home-and-home series against Mount Royal on Feb. 3-4.
