Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
SASKATOON – Things were looking up for the MacEwan Griffins men's hockey team after they stemmed the tide of conceding eight-straight Saskatchewan goals over the weekend midway through the first period on Saturday when they scored twice in the span of 22 seconds.
After losing 6-0 on Friday and going down 2-0 in the first 11 minutes on Saturday, the Griffins got back-to-back rebound tallies from Kadyn Chabot and Carter Chorney to tie the game.
Unfortunately, the wheels fell off spectacularly after that.
The U SPORTS No. 7-ranked Huskies scored eight more straight goals in the final 44:44 to complete a 10-2 rout of the Griffins. Four of them came on the powerplay.
"I think special teams let us down this weekend and today," said MacEwan head coach Zack Dailey. "I'm not sure how many powerplay goals they got, but I thought five-on-five we were pretty good."
The Griffins got into a ton of penalty trouble on Saturday, assessed 50 minutes in the sin bin compared to 38 for the Huskies and Saskatchewan made them pay.
"We took some dumb penalties that I didn't like, but also just weren't able to capitalize our structure on the penalty kill, so that's unfortunate," said Dailey.
Four Huskies finished with three or more points: Liam Keeler (2G, 2A), Gunner Kinniburgh (4A), Ben Tkachuk (2G, 1A) and Raphael Pelletier (1G, 2A).
Other multi-point Saskatchewan efforts belonged to: Chantz Petruic (1G, 1A), Vince Loschiavo (1G, 1A), Keaton Sorensen (1G, 1A), and Landon Kosior (2A).
Justin Ball and Carter Stebbings also scored for Saskatchewan, who improve to 12-4-0 in the Canada West standings, now eight points ahead of the Griffins (7-7-2) for second place in the East Division.
GOAL��
— MacEwan Griffins Men's Hockey (@GriffinsMHKY) December 1, 2024
Kadyn Chabot gets the @MacEwanGriffins on the board in Saskatoon, putting home the rebound in the first period!#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/JdVciY7lrS
Griffins' starter Brett Epp was chased from the contest after allowing seven goals against in 29:55 on 19 shots. Carson Ironside finished the game stopping eight of 11 shots he faced.
Roddy Ross got the win for Saskatchewan with 23 saves on 25 shots.
Despite the setback heading into semester break, the Griffins can look back on the first half of the season with some satisfaction. They're sitting in a playoff position, 10 points ahead of Manitoba for the last berth in the East Division, although the Bisons have two games in hand.
GOAL��
— MacEwan Griffins Men's Hockey (@GriffinsMHKY) December 1, 2024
Just 22 seconds after Chabot's opener, Carter Chorney ties the game 2-2!#GriffNation @MacEwanGriffins pic.twitter.com/34FTEKC9Y3
"I'll try to look big picture after that," said Dailey, following Saturday's loss. "For this program, the most we've won in a (Canada West) season is nine and we're at seven. So, we've definitely done some good things that way. We're at .500 to give ourselves a chance to be in the playoffs, which is great.
"That being said, I don't like the trend of our game. I thought the last two weekends, we've been trending down, so we're going to have to find our game again in the second half if we want to be successful."
The Griffins return to action Jan. 3-4 vs. the Alberta Golden Bears with Saturday's game at home (5 p.m., Downtown Community Arena, Canada West TV).
