Jason Hills
For MacEwan Athletics
SASKATOON – The Saskatchewan Huskies have made it a trend to score first and score early in their games this season, and the MacEwan Griffins found out the hard way.
Vince Loschiavo recorded his first career hat-trick, scoring just 2:41 into the game and then another goal just 3:01 later to pace the Huskies to a 6-0 win over the Griffins on Friday night at Merlis Belsher Place.
Dawson Holt added a late first period marker, while Keaton Sorenson made it 4-0 after two. Liam Keeler and Loschiavo scored in the third period to round out the scoring for the Huskies.
Brett Epp made 24 saves in the loss for MacEwan who now trail the Huskies by six points in the Canada West standings, while Roddy Ross made 22 saves for his first shutout of the season.
"They're the type of team that if you make a mistake, they will capitalize on it," said Griffins head coach Zack Dailey.
"The goals we gave up were easily preventable, we just got out competed, and that needs to be a staple of our team. If they're going to score goals, we need to make them earn it, and I felt like we didn't do that enough tonight. They got too many sticks on pucks for easy tips."
After Loschiavo's opening goal, it was the Griffins who came back with a big spark. They showed some push back and got some extended time in the offensive zone, but they couldn't score.
Then, Loschiavo made it 2-0, cashing in on a rebound, and that stung the Griffins.
Holt's shot through traffic made it 3-0, and the Griffins were in a big hole after 20 minutes.
"I liked our energy for most of the game," said Dailey.
"I just felt that we didn't do a good enough job in front of our net, and offensively, we couldn't get anything going. We couldn't connect passes on the tape, and we couldn't get any zone time."
MacEwan fell behind 4-0 when Sorenson was in the perfect spot in the slot, and he ripped a shot past Epp after the puck came out in front following Ben Tkachuk winning a puck battle from behind the net.
The Griffins finished 0-for-5 on the power play, while their penalty kill yielded two goals to Saskatchewan on markers from Keeler and Loschiavo in the third to make it a tough ending to the first game of their weekend series against the Huskies.
"Defensively, we gave up 30 shots, and I thought they did a really good job in the neutral zone with their speed, and they did a really good job of blocking shots, against us," said Dailey.
The loss certainly hurt the Griffins in the standings as they fell to 7-6-2 and are now six points behind Saskatchewan who improved to 11-4-0. With one game left before the semester break, the Griffins will try to cut the deficit back to four points on Saturday afternoon.
"We talked about it all week. This is our last couple of games before the semester break, we have to lay it all out on the line and empty the gas tank and give it our best effort," said Dailey.
"That the message tomorrow, we have to be better and give it everything we have. I need to create a game plan that gives us the best chance to win. I will do my job tonight, and hopefully they can do their job tomorrow."
Puck drop on Saturday is at 4 p.m. MT (Canada West TV).
