VANCOUVER –The UBC Thunderbirds provided a third period onslaught, scoring twice to cut their deficit to a single goal, but the comeback bid fell just short as the Mount Royal Cougars hung on to split the weekend series – and the season series – with a 3-2 win Saturday afternoon at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
The Cougars owned the first 40 minutes, but the final period belonged to the Thunderbirds with goals from Jack Wismer and Tian Rask while outshooting the visitors by a 12-5 margin. But a pair of late penalties sapped UBC's momentum as they failed to find the equalizer in what turned out to be a highly entertaining finish.
"They really brought the energy in that first period and we were mentally slow, physically late on pucks and spent way too much time in our D zone," said UBC head coach Sven Butenschon following a second consecutive weekend split. "Because they're a fast skating, offensive team we just weren't stiff enough defensively."
Following Friday night's result that saw the T-Birds snap Mount Royal's six-game win streak, the Cougars came out with purpose from puck drop, putting up the first eight shots of the game by the four minute mark before UBC even had a sniff of the offensive zone at the other end of the ice.
The visitors got rewarded eight minutes in when a Connor Blake point shot snuck past Cole Schwebius. A cross-ice pass attempt from Lane Gilliss deflected off a UBC stick to the far boards where the veteran defenceman simply hammered the puck towards the net, five-hole for his first of the season.
"I was very happy with the start and our guys were engaged," said MRU head coach Bert Gilling. "You could kind of tell it was all business during pregame and we came out with a lot of energy and wanted to get up early. We know these afternoon games can be tough, it was good to start off with the lead and I felt we deserved to have the lead at that time."
If not for some strong play by Schwebius throughout the opening period, the Cougars could easily have been up by two or more. MRU outshot the T-Birds 14-7 in the first and out-chanced them by a wider margin.
The Cougars doubled their lead 6:32 into the second when Michael Ladyman wristed his second of the season past Schwebius' blocker.
Seven minutes later and the Cougars were up 3-0. Riley Sawchuk skated in with the puck on a two-on-one and was denied by Schwebius with the blocker, but the rebound came out to Connor Bouchard who popped home his fifth.
The 'Birds weren't generating much offensively through the first two periods, in part due to being forced to kill six penalties. For the second straight game UBC's PK came up strong, holding the Cougars off the board on eight total opportunities by the final buzzer, but the hard work paid a toll.
"When I look back at this whole weekend I just felt like we were killing," Butenschon lamented. "We put together a shift or two and then there's another penalty. It was really hard for our forwards to get any kind of rhythm. You kind of lean on those guys and guys like (Liam) Kindree and (Josh) Williams who don't get to kill penalties and even (Sasha) Mutala and (Sam) Huo, they just sit on the bench for long periods of time. For offensive guys you need rhythm, you need puck touches, you need to take a couple shots to get your sights lined up for next time."
Despite facing a three-goal deficit with just 20 minutes remaining, the T-Birds met the challenge head on and got a massive boost when Wismer scored a beauty for his sixth of the season, 6:35 into the final period. The second-year forward collected a loose puck in his own zone, and skated it out to centre, dishing to Mutala who fed it back as they entered MRU territory. Wismer then brilliantly lifted Blake's stick, grabbed the puck on the other side of the Cougars' defenceman, and roofed the puck bar-down past Jackson Berry.
The ice was soon tilted as the goal gave the 'Birds some much-needed life and the vast majority of the next 10 minutes was spent in the Cougars' zone.
Rask cut the UBC lead to just one with his third of the season, picking up his own rebound after deflecting a Scott Atkinson long-range shot.
Still with half a period remaining, the T-Birds had time and momentum firmly on their side, but a third goal proved elusive. UBC then spent the final two minutes on the penalty kill once again as the Cougars managed to hold off the barrage.
"We just kept our heads," added Gilling. "We know how that generally goes and quite honestly we've had a bit of a tough time with some of these three goal leads over the last year or two. We're trying to work through it and I think there are some good teachable moments for our group there, and we were able to get out of it with the win, so that's a good thing."
"All the chances we had in the third period, loose pucks just a couple inches away on a few of those," Butenschon continued, disappointed the comeback bid started as late as it did. "Stupid penalties again in the third period when you're trying to make a comeback makes it impossible."
Despite the loss, the T-Birds come away from this weekend having played two playoff type games against a strong opponent, earning a split and a hard fought two points.
"This weekend's performance felt like a team mentality and a team spirit, really rallying and pulling for each other," added Butenschon. "Blocking shots and doing all those little things, that stuff matters. Moving forward if we can play like that in Regina we should be okay."
As mentioned, the T-Birds now head to Regina next weekend for the final two games of 2022 before a lengthy December break.
