VANCOUVER – Earning their first win at Clare Drake Arena since the 2020 Canada West semifinals, the UBC Thunderbirds handed the Alberta Golden Bears just their second regulation loss of the season in a 5-3 final Friday night.
Led by a pair of Jake Lee power play goals, the T-Birds (7-4-2) held a 5-0 lead early in the third before the Bears (10-2-1) scored three of their own on the man advantage within an eight minute span to make things interesting. But Dorrin Luding made 12 of his 33 saves in the final 20 minutes to secure his second win of the season and the T-Birds' third in a row.
"Tonight we looked like guys who had basically had enough of not achieving to their potential and they went out there and played with a plan, with passion, they followed instructions and executed what they needed to," said UBC head coach Sven Butenschon. "It's a character win but we've felt we have a character group from day one. Working hard, disciplined, gritty, enough skill to score enough goals to win games but also enough guys that are willing to defend. They played with passion and desire."
The T-Birds struck first just five minutes into the opening period with Cyle McNabb benefitting from strong position at the front of the net for his eighth of the season. Bears goaltender Nick Schneider made a save off a Conner McDonald point shot but McNabb was unattended by the crease to quickly jam in the rebound as the 'Birds capitalized on some solid zone time.
A strong first period saw the 'Birds stake out a 2-0 lead when Lee scored his second in as many games, this one late on a two-man UBC advantage. The rookie defenceman took a cross-ice feed from McNabb, toe dragged and then wristed the puck past Schneider for his eighth of the year.
After a more evenly played first half of the second period, Lee notched his second of the game, again on the power play, to give the T-Birds a 3-0 lead. An Alberta turnover on the penalty kill saw the puck land right on Lee's tape. The silky defenceman came in on Schneider and he roofed the puck bar-down for UBC's second 5-on-3 marker of the night.
Not even two minutes later and Jack Wismer made it a four-goal advantage with his fifth of the campaign. After the Bears killed off the remainder of UBC's 5-on-4 advantage, they came into the T-Birds zone on an odd man rush, but an errant pass saw Jonathan Smart collect the puck off the boards and quickly send Wismer in on a breakaway and the second-year forward beat Schneider high, stick side.
With pretty well everyone at Clare Drake Arena expecting a hard Alberta press in the final 20 minutes, it was the T-Birds who picked up right where they left off as Sasha Mutala gave the visitors a 5-0 lead less than two minutes in with his fourth goal and team leading 19th point of the season. The rookie forward finished a back door tap-in off a Sam Huo feed while Wismer picked up his second point of the night with the secondary assist.
The conference leading Bears finally got on the board at the 6:20 mark of the third when Matt Fonteyne got a hard wrister from the right circle past Luding on the power play, the first of 25 Alberta shots to find its way into the T-Bird net.
Alberta cut further into the UBC lead with a Dawson Davidson power play marker with just over seven minutes remaining. Eric Florchuk made a backhand pass low across the slot to Davidson who had a wide open net for his third of the campaign.
The tides had firmly turned when Josh Prokop cut the deficit to just two goals, rifling a shot from the right wing less than two minutes later as the Clare Drake faithful all of a sudden had hopes of a comeback.
But those hopes were eventually dashed thanks in large part to Luding who made several more key stops in the late stages of the final period, helping prevent the Bears from getting even closer despite putting Schneider on the bench for the extra attacker with two minutes remaining.
"Our defence accepted their pressure very well, we didn't spend too much time in our zone in the first two periods," added Butenschon whose team is enjoying their first three-game win streak of the season. "Our forwards did a great job though in the offensive zone, hanging onto pucks playing down there. The best way to defend is playing in the offensive zone and the group of forwards we have, they're big and strong so we've just been challenging them to hang onto pucks down there and use our size to our advantage."
Having their five-game win streak snapped, the Bears will look for the weekend split Saturday when they face the T-Birds for the final time this regular season. Puck drop at Clare Drake Arena is set for 6:00 p.m. PT.
