VANCOUVER - It was a hard-hitting, fast-paced, emotional affair when the Regina Cougars arrived at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre to face the UBC Thunderbirds and in the end, it was the T-Birds who came up with the 5-3 win. Despite getting out to a 3-0 lead early in the second period, the game turned into a tightly contested battle through the second half of regulation.
UBC head coach Milan Dragicevic talked about his team's great start, and credited goaltender
Jordan White for his strong play to close out the game.
“All week we focused on our Friday nights because the last couple of weeks we've come out flat,” explained Dragicevic. “We came out with some desperation tonight and got 15 shots and a lead. We just need to sustain that. We lost our composure and took some bad penalties. We regained it after we killed some penalties and blocked some key shots. And then Whitey came through at the end for us.”
Mike Liambas opened the scoring after his line's hard skating caused a turnover in the Cougars' zone.
Ben Schmidt's shot at the net was mishandled by a Regina defenceman, and Liambas was on the doorstep to pop it in.
UBC poured on the pressure in the second period, and after hitting two posts, were finally rewarded for their effort. After a flurry of shots at Cougars goalie, Adam Ward, Max Gordichuck jumped on a rebound and knocked it into an open side of the net. It was signature hard-nosed Thunderbirds hockey.
After Brendan Sonne put the T-Birds up by three off another rebound, Craig Cuthbert surprised White with a shot on a rush from the top of the face-off circle that beat the UBC netminder five-hole.
Things shifted slightly in the game at that point. UBC had been dominant, but Regina was showing they had a lot of life left in them.
Brett Leffler got the Cougars to within one when he roofed a shot blocker side coming down the right wing, and the teams exchanged goals again with
Max Grassi scoring for the 'Birds and Dillon Johnstone notching one for the visitors.
It was desperate hockey in the third period with the teams separated by a goal. The T-Birds found themselves down two men, but got a huge penalty kill to maintain their lead.
“Keeping them to the outside and not allowing any shots on the 5-on-3 was huge,” said Dragicevic.
UBC captain
Matthew Schneider iced it for the home team with an empty net goal with 12 seconds to play. It was an important victory for a team in an ultra-tight playoff race.
“At this point, any win is huge. We have to come together, it doesn't matter if we have three defencemen or nine defencemen,” said Dragicevic, as he team had only four healthy rearguards in the game. “The guys that are out there have to stick to the systems and to the things that we do well. We start straying from the plan, we lose our composure and you saw what happened tonight. That's not who we want to be.”
The re-match is set for 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.
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