VANCOUVER – The Mount Royal Cougars showcased their special teams prowess scoring three times on the power play along with a shorthanded goal as part of a 6-1 rout over the UBC Thunderbirds Friday night at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Robbie Holmes led the way with a pair of power play tallies while the Canada West scoring leader, Clay Hanus, had a three point night as the Cougars (15-4) snapped UBC's (12-6-1) eight-game win streak to expand their lead atop the West Division to five points.
"We were chasing the game right off the hop, couldn't get any rhythm," said UBC head coach,
Sven Butenschon, whose team looked like one which hadn't played a meaningful game in more than a month. "When you fall behind early like that, the ice was also really bad out there too, and you're forced to make plays chasing the game, it never really works out. Just going to simplify before we play tomorrow."
Coming off a sweep of the Calgary Dinos last weekend to open up 2025, the Cougars came out of the gate flying Friday night, dominating puck possession while outshooting the T-Birds by a 16-6 margin.
Cole Schwebius helped stem the tide early with some tremendous saves, but Tristan Zandee opened scoring midway through the period, finding the puck on the back door after Teague Patton made a nice deflection pass from the top of the blue paint.
Jayden Wiens doubled the visitors' lead on the power play just over two minutes later at the 12:56 mark.
Before the period was out, the 'Birds got some much-needed life with
Jake Wright's tenth of the season, tying him with
Sam Huo for the team lead, just inside the final minute.
Cyle McNabb stopped up along the boards with the puck and centred to Wright who wristed it blocker side past Shane Farkas.
Down by just the single goal and with momentum behind them, the T-Birds enjoyed four consecutive power plays in the first half of the second, including a 44 second two-man advantage. But not only was UBC unable to convert, they allowed their third shorthanded goal against on the season when Hanus scored his tenth to restore MRU's two-goal advantage.
Holmes' first of two power play goals on the night came with just 18 seconds remaining in the second as the Cougars took a 4-1 lead into the third.
The T-Birds came out with purpose to start the final period with some sustained offensive zone time, but they weren't able to claw out of the deficit before it became even deeper thanks to Holmes' second of the game at 5:08.
Justin Lies added his 11
th with six minutes remaining but the game was no longer in doubt by that point, the Cougars handing UBC their most lopsided loss of the season.
"Bad reads, losing battles and then allowing seam passes for them to execute one-timers," Butenschon said, summing up MRU's recipe for power play success. "You can't give up seam passes and have a successful penalty kill. They get it in, they set it up, they get us running around a bit and then find a seam pass. They could have had a bunch more on the power play, we got lucky on a few more. They've got some offensive weapons there that are really good on the power play and when they get it, they one-time it, they don't stop the puck and then shoot it. They one-time pucks and that's how you score."
Saturday's rematch with MRU will not only give the T-Birds a shot at evening up the season series in their sixth and final meeting of the campaign, UBC can also get back within shouting distance of the division lead. Needless to say, the defending Canada West champions will need to be much sharper in order to do so.
"The game of hockey is hard when you haven't played in a long time. They played two competitive games last week against Calgary and then there's all the penalty calls, so not only are you trying to shake off the rust and try to feel good about your game after being off for so long, you're constantly juggling players and lines and killing penalties. It was a pretty challenging game for the group. Not to let them off the hook though, it was still unacceptable by us out there."
With a massive two points up for grabs, puck drop Saturday is set for 3:00 p.m. at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Tickets are available online now and the game will also be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
