Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – It's incredible how fast things melted for the MacEwan Griffins men's hockey team in their home opener on Friday night.
With 20 minutes to go, they were playing a sound competitive and defensive game, backed by great goaltending as they led the Alberta Golden Bears 2-1 and seemed to be on their way to possibly beating their cross-town rivals for first time at home.
Then the floodgates opened and flooded them off the scoresheet.
In less than six minutes in the third period, the Golden Bears scored four times and capped it off with a late tally for a 6-2 rout in the opening game of the 2024-25 Canada West season for both teams.
"They're a good team," said Griffins head coach Zack Dailey. "They pushed. I thought they got better as the game went on and we kind of dropped our level.
"A little bit short, if you want to use excuses," he added about having to go with only 10 forwards in the contest due to a wave of injuries in preseason. "But we have to find a way regardless of what the situation is."
Alex Thacker and Justin Hall each scored twice for the Golden Bears, the latter also picking up an assist, while Tyler Presziuso (1G, 1A) and Aidan de la Gorgendiere (2A) also had multi-point games.
"I'm definitely disappointed with the third period there," said Dailey. "I thought we got away from stuff that made us successful. I thought they started to stretch us out and we had trouble with backchecks, and they got a lot of rush chances. Just some stuff to clean up in our neutral zone and on our backchecks."
That was working nicely for the Griffins in the first 40 as the Golden Bears were largely kept in check after Thacker opened the scoring on the powerplay 4:28 into the contest, hitting an open net after the puck fortuitously bounced onto his stick out of a scramble broken play.
M��| GOAL��
— MacEwan Griffins (@MacEwanGriffins) October 5, 2024
Kadyn Chabot hits top shelf for the @GriffinsMHKY's first of the 2024-25 campaign after Sam Simard wins a 1-on-2 battle to get him the puck!
After 20 minutes, @MacEwanU is tied 1-1 with @GBHKY. Shots are 15-11 for MacEwan.#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/Qno0D7DtzH
But MacEwan outshot Alberta 14-11 in the opening frame and knotted the score on a beautiful play by three players. Hunter Donohoe threw a long stretch pass out of the zone, Samuel Simard won a 1-on-2 battle and sent a behind-the-back pass to Kadyn Chabot, who sniped it top corner.
Kadyn Chabot scored MacEwan's first of the season in the first period on Friday (Rebecca Chelmick photo).
"(Donohoe) didn't have anything, so instead of turning a puck over, he made a simple play," said Dailey. "Then, we had speed and pressure on their D. We outcompeted two guys and made a great play, and then got to use our skill with a great shot.
"That's kind of what I'm trying to implement here is simple plays, outcompete and then we can let our skill ride at the end."
M��| Through 40 ...
— MacEwan Griffins (@MacEwanGriffins) October 5, 2024
Brett Epp has stopped 26 of 27 so far in his @CanadaWest debut - including this solid breakaway save - as @GriffinsMHKY leads @GBHKY 2-1 after 2.#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/Ecwp5sjVct
After a series of great saves by veteran journeyman goaltender Brett Epp, who was making his Canada West debut in net for the Griffins – including a breakaway stop 2:20 into the second and a hot glove save on Blake Gustafson moments later – MacEwan took the lead.
Eric Florchuk's attempted pass behind his own net out of a corner scramble went off the side of the net and Vincent Scott jumped on it, went around Tyler Palmer and squeaked it under him.
M��| GOAL��
— MacEwan Griffins (@MacEwanGriffins) October 5, 2024
Vincent Scott jumps on an errant pass out of the corner and buries it to put @GriffinsMHKY up 2-1 on @GBHKY in the late stages of the second period!#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/mYM0vThpXW
But Alberta came out on a mission in the third, tying the game 3:42 into the frame when Preziuso cruised in on the left side unaccounted for off a shift change and he took de la Gorgendiere's cross-seam pass and wired it off the post and in.
Exactly a minute later, Thacker caught a break when Konrad Belcourt's point blast missed the net, but bounced off the back wall onto his tape on the other side, and he hit an open net after Epp slid over for the original shot.
Hall made it 4-2 less than two minutes later when he tipped de la Gorgendiere's point shot in heavy traffic past Epp, who didn't even react to it.
Noah Boyko made it 5-0 at 9:29 on a play created by Ty Nash, who occupied traffic in the slot, sput and hit the trailer Boyko, who wired it in.
Finally, with 41 seconds left, Adam Hall's shot went far pad on Epp and Justin Hall, untouched, tapped in the rebound.
Epp finished with 36 saves for MacEwan, while Palmer, who was also making his Canada West debut, stopped 21 for his first win.
"It's the most cliché thing to say that you need to play for 60 minutes, but teams are too good in our league that if you take a break for 5-10 minutes you're probably going to be scored on," said Dailey. "Trying to stay dialed in, trying to stay consistent over a whole game is certainly something everybody's trying to do, but it's something our group needs to work on."
The teams will meet again on Saturday (7 p.m., Clare Drake Arena, Canada West TV).
