Courtesy: Ryan Flaherty
Fast start, slow finish

Griffins beat Huskie men’s hockey team

Nov 11, 2022 | 11:31 PM

A quick start is one of the building blocks for success in hockey and the Huskies men’s hockey team got one on Friday, but it didn’t translate into a victory this time as the rest of their game fell short in a 3-1 loss to the MacEwan University Griffins.

Connor Hobbs opened the scoring just 28 seconds into the contest and the Huskies appeared to be off and running. However, that turned out to be their only goal all night as a hardworking Griffins squad played them tough and did a better job capitalizing on its scoring chances than the Dogs did.

“I don’t know if we thought it was going to be easy. They’ve beat every good team in the league and they’re a good team too because they work hard,” Huskies head coach Brandin Cote said. “We didn’t make it hard enough on them and I didn’t think we deserved to win.”

It wasn’t’ as if the Huskies didn’t have any scoring chances, but when they did, Griffins goaltender Ashton Abel had the answers. When he didn’t, his goalposts did, with at least four Saskatchewan shots ringing off the iron. The Dogs also lost the special teams battle, going 0-for-6 on the power play while the Griffins scored twice in six power play opportunities including Carter Chorney’s empty-net insurance marker.

It’s the first time the Griffins have ever beaten the Huskies since joining the Canada West in 2021-22 after making the move from the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference. Saskatchewan defeated MacEwan by scores of 5-0 and 6-1 last season but they faced a much-improved Griffins team on Friday.

“They’ve got some better players. They were shorthanded too, but again, they worked, they capitalized on their chances…but as a group we didn’t compete hard enough. We didn’t stick to the gameplan we had in place consistently enough,” Cote said.

On a positive note, goaltender Jordan Kooy had a strong game in net, making 28 saves in his third start of the season. The second-year Huskie wasn’t even expected to get the nod until starter Roddy Ross tweaked something in the morning skate and was unable to make his sixth consecutive start.

“He made some good saves. There were a couple of acrobatic ones where he kept us in the game and I thought Jordan was fine, especially under the circumstances,” Cote said.

The Huskies, now 7-2-1 on the year, don’t have much time to lick their wounds as they will be back on the ice for the rematch with the Griffins at 3 p.m. on Saturday. With MacEwan now just three points back of Saskatchewan in the standings, their second and final meeting of the regular season carries a bit of extra importance given Friday’s result.

“We have to respond the right way in terms of our work ethic and our desire and every two points, every game is valuable,” Cote said. “It doesn’t really matter if we play them twice or ten times, we’ve just gotta come out and want to win the game.”

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