Vancouver, BC - The Calgary Dinos took over fourth spot in the Canada West conference with a 6-2 victory over the UBC Thunderbirds men's hockey team Friday night at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. The Dinos have now won four straight games, while UBC has lost four of their last five regular season games.
BOX SCORE
The Thunderbirds had trouble shaking the holiday rust off early as the visitors from Calgary got off to a great start scoring a pair of goals in the first 4:59 of action. Kevin King potted his eighth goal of the year and Taylor Stefishen scored his second of the year to give the Dinos the early 2-0 lead. UBC had some chances early, but couldn't convert as both
Joe Antilla (Madeira Park, BC) and
Michael Wilgosh (Selkirk, MB) had opportunities to get the Thunderbirds on the board. UBC would finally click on the power play as
Brad Hoban (Victoria, BC) took a nice feed from
Max Grassi (North Vancouver, BC) that just slipped past Dinos goaltender Dustin Butler to cut the lead to 2-1 with 3: 28 left in the opening frame. That is how things would stand through 20 minutes of play.
After killing off a power play to start the second period, the Thunderbirds started to turn up their offensive game, led by leading scoer
Max Grassi. The fourth year product had three chances on one shift, including a point blank opportunity on a two on one, but Dustin Butler was there to deny him every time. Butler's counterpart
Jordan White (Surrey, BC) was no slouch himself stopping Dinos captain Brock Nixon twice, once on a shorthanded partial breakaway and again on the power play with an outstanding left pad save on a one timer. The 'Birds would score the equlizer with 3:32 left in the second period as
Neil Manning's (Nanaimo, BC) wrister found the back of the net for his first career CIS goal, tieing the game at 2-2. However, the excitement wouldn't last long as Walker Wintoneak scored on the power play with 4.9 seconds left in the frame to give Calgary a 3-2 lead after two periods of play.
"That goal killed us," said UBC head coach Milan Dragicevic. "We took a bad penalty, didn't get the puck, and they made us pay scoring the eventual game winner."
Jordan White came up with a big save to start the third period, stopping Corey Banfield off the rush, then he swiped away the rebound from the crease just as a pair of Dinos were about to pounce on it. Unfortunately, that would be the only hiighlight of the period for the Thunderibrds, as they came out flat in the frame and Calgary would make them pay scoring three goals on route to a 6-2 victory. Stefishen and Wintoneak both scored their second goals of the game, while Corey Banfield chipped in with a single. UBC was outshot 10-7 in the period and 27-26 overall. White gave up six goals on 26 shots in the UBC net and was replaced by
Steven Stanford (Calgary, AB) with 6:17 left in the game.
Despite this being the Thunderbirds first Canada West regular season game since December 1, 2012, head coach Milan Dragicevic wasn't going to use rust as a reason for his team's lacklustre effort.
"There are no excuses. I though we took it to them for much of the second period, controlling the play and then we had nothing in the third period. In fact, we had nothing in the first period. Our guys were not ready to play, we weren't prepared to battle, and everybody has to take responsibility, coaches and players alike."
With the loss UBC falls to fifth place in thd Canada West conference with a record of 9-7-1, one point behind Calgary (10-7-0) and just one point up on sixth place Regina (8-7-2).
Stefishen, a North Vancouver, BC product, and Wintoneak each finished with two goals and an assist, while Kodie Curran chipped in with three helpers for the Dinos. Butler made 24 saves in net for the victory.
UBC welcomed their captain back to the line up.
Justin McCrae (Cochrane, AB) returned after missing the last nine regular season games with a concussion. However, the Thunderbirds were without centre
Nate Fleming (St. Albert, AB) who missed the game with the flu.
These two teams will be back in action tomorrow at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Puck drop is 7:00 pm.
