Photo credit: Electric Umbrella/Liam Richards/Huskie Athletics

By Ryan Flaherty

missed opportunity

Cougars pounce early, hang on late to beat Huskies

Feb 3, 2024 | 12:46 AM

A pair of early turnovers proved costly for the Huskies men’s hockey team as they opened a rare four-game road trip with a 3-2 loss to the Mount Royal Cougars on Friday in Calgary.

The Cougars took advantage of the Huskies’ miscues to score two goals in a 45-second span just five minutes into the game, and while the Dogs settled in after that and eventually took control in the third period, their comeback effort ultimately fell short.

“We talked about not turning the puck over, especially against their top guys, and we did that twice in 30 seconds and that was basically the game,” head coach Brandin Cote said.

Mount Royal opened the scoring at the 4:16 mark of the first period after a Huskies giveaway just outside their own blue line. The Cougars quickly countered and Jaden Senkoe found himself all alone at the edge of the crease where he shoveled a goalmouth pass into the open side of the net for his 10th goal of the season.

Less than a minute later, another turnover inside the Huskies zone led to a crisp Cougars passing play, setting up Clay Hanus in the slot and he beat Jordan Kooy to double the advantage. Despite being outshot 8-5 in the first, Mount Royal would maintain the two-goal lead after twenty minutes.

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The home side continued to press in the second and on their fourth power play of the night, second-semester addition Robbie Fromm-Delorme buried a rebound to make it 3-0.

But the tide soon began to turn.

“We were a little bit down in the dumps at the (second-period) media timeout, I had a bit of a forthright talk with our guys and I think they took that to heart,” Cote said.

Not long after, a hardworking shift by the Huskies fourth line led to their first goal of the night as Ben Tkachuk fed Mark Rumsey in front and the second-year forward ripped a shot past Cougars netminder Shane Farkas to get the Huskies back within two.

From that point forward, the Huskies had new life and the scoring chances started to pile up. But Farkas held the fort, keeping it at 3-1 after two periods.

The Dogs cut the deficit to one in the opening minute of the third, with Chantz Petruic notching his 11th goal of the season on a man advantage that carried over from the second. Saskatchewan continued to press, but thanks to some strong work by Farkas and a few missed opportunities, including three unsuccessful power plays, they still found themselves down late. Kooy was pulled for an extra skater with 1:17 to play and the Dogs got numerous looks at the Cougars net but could not produce the tying goal.

“I thought their goaltender played fantastic. We both had to battle through some adversity with some things out of our control as well but it is what it is. I thought our response was good and we’ve just gotta take some of the positives, look at it tomorrow and make some adjustments,” Cote said.

Kooy turned aside 26 shots on the night while Farkas stopped 36, including 17 of 18 in the final period, to earn his conference-leading 17th win of the season. Saskatchewan’s power play went 1/6 while Mount Royal’s top-ranked unit converted one of five power plays.

The loss puts a significant dent in the Dogs’ hopes of securing a top-two seed and a first round bye in the Canada West playoffs. Saskatchewan is now 16-6-1 on the season and remains in fifth place, one point back of the Alberta Golden Bears, who also lost on Friday, and seven points behind the Cougars, who pulled into a tie with the idle Calgary Dinos for second.

The Huskies still have a mathematical shot at getting into the top two, but they need to win all five of their remaining games and have several other results go their way over the final eight days of the season.

Their immediate focus, however, is Saturday’s rematch and finding a way to cool off the red-hot Cougars, who have now won 12 straight games and all three head-to-head meetings with Saskatchewan.

The final game of the weekend set is scheduled for 5 p.m. MST and can be heard on HuskieFAN.

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@RFlahertypxp