VANCOUVER – The No. 3 ranked Alberta Golden Bears scored four times in the third period, two of them from Connor McClennon, to remain undefeated on the season, handing the UBC Thunderbirds a 5-3 loss Friday night.
In a strange evening that saw the game shift from Father Bauer Arena to a tertiary sheet at the Doug Mitchell complex after just five minutes, the 'Birds (2-4-1) held a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes as they looked poised to end Alberta's (7-0) season-long win streak. But after
Sam Huo's second goal of the night evened things back up at 3-3, the 'Bears scored their second power play marker of the game, a wrister through traffic from Eric Florchuk at the 13:39 mark which stood up as the game winner.
"I think we probably deserved better but the way the season's gone, we shoot ourselves in the foot, we don't get any bounces and other teams have been opportunistic against us, that's about it," said UBC head coach,
Sven Butenschon, following a frustrating evening. "I really liked a lot of aspects of our game and then we just take a penalty at the end and we can't get a kill. 5-on-5 we haven't given up much this year, it's just that our special teams right now is the problem."
The T-Birds did score twice themselves on the power play, both from Huo. The third-year's second of the season 12:09 into the second period game UBC their only lead of the game, finishing off a perfectly threaded pass from
Sasha Mutala.
Ty Thorpe had got the 'Birds on the board earlier in the frame with his first of the season.
Following two solid periods, UBC got some major pushback from the Bears to start the third. Alberta scored twice within a 3:06 span, McClennon's first of the game followed by Tyson Laventure's first, slipping the puck past
Brett Mirwald on a breakaway to put the visitors back in front, 3-2.
Huo tipped a Mutala point shot on the power play for his second of the game at the 11:09 mark, but after a T-Birds boarding call put the Bears on their fifth power play of the game, Florchuk made UBC pay with his second of the season, McClennon hit the empty net with just 21 seconds remaining to put the icing on the cake as the Golden Bears salted away their seventh straight win.
"I think we're really close," said Butenschon of his team's overall execution. "Especially after the second period if you had asked me I'd be like 'man, we are buzzing right now'. Then in the rhird period, the last ten minutes for whatever reason, we'd be applying a lot of pressure and they'd just pump the puck into a spot that they knew their teammate was at and then they'd hit a guy with speed coming late, they knew he was there and then our D are flat footed. They made us pay on those chances. We didn't give up much, but they made us pay."
The 'Birds get another crack at the Bears Saturday in what will be their final regular season meeting of 2023-24, an opportunity to put the first dent in Alberta's season but more importantly for UBC, a chance to get a critical two points which have been hard to come by of late.
"You got to be mentally tough and stay positive and just work through it. Tomorrow's probably going to be even harder, you just got to work through it. It would be good to get a lead a little bit and play with some confidence. Try to get some success early, try to feel good about things and just be good about the basics."
Puck drop is set for 3:00 p.m. PT and the game will be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
