CALGARY –
Austin Vetterl scored at 12:52 of overtime to give the UBC Thunderbirds a 5-4 win over the Mount Royal Cougars to advance to the Canada West semifinals for the first time in six years.
Trailing by as much as three goals late in the second period, the Cougars mounted a ferocious comeback, capped off with Jesse Lees' tying marker with just 1.1 seconds left in the third period to force overtime Sunday night at Flames Community Arenas.
But despite the hard momentum swing in the Cougars' favour, it was a fifth-year veteran who secured his team's first ever series win over MRU when Vetterl picked up a rebound on the power play off a
Jerret Smith shot.
"At the end it was just a really beautiful thing to see a fifth-year guy score a goal like that from your captain,
Jerret Smith, it was so awesome," said UBC head coach
Sven Butenschon after clinching his first series win as T-Birds bench boss. "Any time in hockey you get out to a lead like that it's hard to sustain it for that long. It was unfortunate to give up that goal at the end but in overtime we just found a way."
The T-Birds came ready to play in their biggest game of the season, staking out a 3-0 lead before the opening period was half over, chasing MRU starting goaltender Wyatt Hoflin from the crease.
Shaun Dosanjh started the scoring frenzy just past the three minute mark with his first career Canada West post-season tally.
Maxwell James had his stick lifted just as he released a shot attempt, but he still got enough on the puck to direct it towards Dosanjh who fired a low shot past Hoflin.
Just 91 seconds later,
Jake Kryski doubled the 'Birds' lead. From below the goal line,
Tyler Sandhu fed the puck to Kryski in the low slot as the former Calgary Hitmen forward scored his second of the series.
Kyle Becker gave UBC their biggest lead of the weekend with his second career post-season goal at the 9:14 mark. A
Carter Popoff wraparound attempt was stopped by Hoflin but Becker came streaking down the middle to pick up the rebound and hammer it into the back of the net.
Allowing three goals on six shots, Hoflin was yanked in favour of Riley Morris who backstopped the Cougars in game one Friday night.
MRU was able to get a big momentum shift just before the period was out, however, as Jamal Watson scored with just seven seconds on the clock, pouncing on a rebound off a Connor Rankin shot as the Cougars cut UBC's lead to two heading into the second.
After a fairly uneventful first 15 minutes of the second frame, the T-Birds and Cougars traded goals just under a minute apart.
Ryan Pouliot briefly restored UBC's three-goal lead with his first of the playoffs. The rookie defenceman took a cross-ice feed from
Joe Carvalho and rifled the puck past Morris' blocker at the 15:53 mark.
Just 58 seconds later, the Cougars responded when a Connor Blake point shot found its way through traffic and in.
The T-Birds knew the final 20 minutes would likely be the toughest of their season and they weren't wrong. The Cougars pressed and got rewarded when Nolan Yaremko cut to the net and backhanded a low shot past Toth to get Mount Royal within a goal.
With just over two minutes remaining and still down by one, the Cougars were awarded their fifth power play of the game. MRU called their timeout and put Morris on the bench for the 6-on-4 advantage. The T-Birds held on but just as the penalty expired, with 1.1 seconds on the clock, Jesse Lees hammered a one-timer past Toth to force overtime with a trip to the semifinals in the balance.
"We had our hearts ripped out there with 1 second left in the third, playing such a good game," added Butenschon. "We could've had a lot of excuses to feel sorry for ourselves but we had a good talk between periods and the leaders stepped up and I was just incredibly impressed with our response in overtime."
Both teams traded chances in the extra frame before Sean Richards was called for tripping giving UBC a massive opportunity on the power play, one they took full advantage of when Vetterl scored the biggest goal of his long Canada West career.
Toth made 33 saves in total, earning his first career Canada West series win in net, as the Cougars outshot UBC by a 37-27 margin.
Advancing to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since the 2014-15 season, the 'Birds will be headed back to Alberta next weekend, this time to face the first-place Golden Bears with a trip to the Canada West final and a national championship berth on the line.
Game one of the best-of-three series is set for Friday, February 21
st at 6:00 p.m. PT at Clare Drake Arena.
