There is no team hotter than the UBC Thunderbirds heading into the Canada West playoffs.
UBC stormed back from a 2-0 deficit in Edmonton on Friday night, tying the Alberta Pandas at 2-2 and forcing overtime. When the overtime period solved nothing,
Tatiana Rafter (Winnipeg, MB) put a wrist shot top shelf in the shootout for the second straight game, earning the Thunderbirds their ninth win in ten games. Rafter also went top-corner in last Saturday's shootout victory over Manitoba.
Karla Bourke and Lindsey Cunningham both scored in the first period to give the Pandas the early lead. Alberta controlled most of the action in the first frame, out-pressuring UBC and creating far more scoring opportunities.
Some adjustments at the intermission sent a new Thunderbird team out for the second period.
Nikola Brown-John (Monte Lake, BC) got UBC on the board on the power play, scoring after
Sarah Casorso (Kelowna, BC) sent a point shot at the net. Casorso has now moved into third in the conference among defencemen with 15 points. Later, with just 18 seconds in the period,
Rebecca Unrau (Humboldt, SK) scored her 11
th of the year to tie the game.
“We had a bad first period,” said head coach
Graham Thomas. “They came out flying and came out really hard, and we just needed to learn a lesson.
“The good thing is, with this team right now, is that the lesson was learned quickly and easily and it didn't take us a full game to figure it out. Everybody picked it up and realized how hard we had to play, and we elevated our game and played better.”
The Pandas controlled the action again in the third period, thanks mostly to three power play opportunities.
Danielle Dube (Vancouver, BC) and the UBC penalty kill held strong. Dube turned away 11 shots in the period and 32 for the game, while UBC held Alberta to a zero-for-six mark with the man-advantage. The Thunderbirds have the conference's second best penalty kill, improving their mark to 88.8%.
“We kind of went through our whole penalty killing rotation,” said Thomas. “It wasn't any one person or any one set, we did a good job keeping them to the outside and pressuring them before they could get set up.”
In overtime, UBC thought they had the game won on a power play but the referee ruled the puck had not crossed the line. The Thunderbird power play had some trouble generating chances in this game. That has generally been a strength of the team this season, so it was unusual to see them not capitalize on 5-on-3 and 4-on-3 chances.
In the shootout, Dube stopped a Bourke deke attempt and then five-hole shots from Katie Stewart and Cunningham. Rafter was the only UBC player to score, but the lone tally was enough.
It was a playoff atmosphere at the Clare Drake Arena, as both of these teams remain fighting for the second seed and a first-round bye in the Canada West playoffs.
“It was like a playoff game,” said Thomas. “It was a lot of intensity and a lot of hard battles.”
With Regina winning their game, UBC would have to win on Saturday and hope for a Regina loss in regulation to jump into second. With just a win or an overtime loss, UBC would secure the third seed and a first-round match-up in Vancouver against either Manitoba or Saskatchewan.
The teams square off again at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
