VANCOUVER – The UBC Thunderbirds saw their three-game win streak snapped in a shootout on Friday, as they went down 3-2 to the Saskatchewan Huskies at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
BOX SCORE
Danny Stone was twice denied on open breakaways in regulation, but the Huskies' second-leading scorer was the only player to convert her chance in the shootout, taking a slow approach on UBC goalie
Danielle Dube before deking to her backhand and stuffing the puck just inside the post.
After a wild four-goal first period, the teams settled into a scoreless game the rest of the way, but the T-Birds seemed to be taking control of the game late. After two periods that were fairly even in terms of scoring chances, the T-Birds controlled the pace of the third. They generated several quality chances but were repeatedly turned away by Huskies goalie Cassidy Hendricks.
“I felt like we played well enough to win. Give them credit for battling. They are a good team and they came at us hard and compete hard, but we matched that and I felt like the momentum was going our way at the end,” said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas. “If we had just kept playing overtime rather than a shootout I feel confident it would have ended in our favour because we controlled the play in the second half of the game.”
UBC outshot the Huskies 7-5 in overtime, and played almost the entire period in the offensive zone, other than an early penalty kill.
Each team racked up six minor penalties, and three of the game's four goals in regulation came on the powerplay. The T-Birds took advantage of two early Huskies penalties right out of the gate, capitalizing on a five-on-three opportunity just as the first penalty expired about four minutes into the game.
Stephanie Schaupmeyer grabbed the goal, her second of the season, with assists to
Rebecca Unrau and
Kaitlin Imai. The lead was short-lived though, as Carlee Hrenkiw equalized for the Huskies less than two minutes later with an unassisted goal.
Unrau and Imai hooked up again for the T-Birds to put them back in front about a minute after Hrenkiw's goal, this time Imai setting up Unrau for her ninth of the season on another power play.
But the Huskies kept up the pressure despite their penalty troubles in the period, outshooting UBC 17-7, and it paid off with another equalizer around the midpoint of the first. The T-Birds' first penalty of the period allowed Cami Wooster to tie the game again, assisted by her sister Cara.
The Huskies' win pulls them one point closer to UBC in the standings, now just four behind the fourth-place T-Birds at 8-9-4 this year. UBC is 10-7-4, looking to jump at least one more spot in the standings before the regular season ends to earn home ice for a playoff series.
The T-Birds and Huskies wrap up their weekend series tomorrow, and Thomas likes his side's chances if they can pick things up where they left off at the end of Friday's overtime.
“We need to come out with the same fire we had at the end of this game. We need to be more consistent and better in our own zone. We did some really good things in their zone today but we have to take care of ours better.”
The puck drops at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
-30-
