Photo credit: Electric Umbrella/Liam Richards/Huskie Athletics

By Ryan Flaherty

grinding it out

Ross rock solid as Huskies hold off Spartans

Feb 5, 2024 | 9:07 PM

Roddy Ross hadn’t played a game in a month but you wouldn’t have known it based on his performance on Monday as he backstopped the Huskies men’s hockey team to a 4-1 win over the Trinity Western Spartans in Langley, B.C.

Ross, who last saw the ice on January 6th against Regina before making way for Jordan Kooy for the last seven games, made 32 saves to earn his tenth win of the season and help the Huskies leapfrog the Alberta Golden Bears into fourth place in the Canada West standings.

“It’s definitely hard but also you gotta be prepared either way. Every game you gotta make sure you’re doing everything the same as if you’re playing so for me it was just practicing, stay as if I’m playing, stay ready,” Ross said.

The third-year goaltender’s effort was essential on a day when the Huskies weren’t at their best. Ross was sharp early as the Spartans started strong and came up with some key saves late as they tried to mount a late rally.

Playing their third road game in four days — the first of two makeup dates for the series against TWU that was postponed in January — the Dogs weren’t nearly as sharp as they were on Saturday night in a 4-3 win over the Mount Royal Cougars. Instead it was the basement-dwelling Spartans who looked to have more jump.

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“We didn’t play with a whole lot of detail. I wasn’t really happy with the overall game, to be honest with you, but we found a way to win,” head coach Brandin Cote said.

Ross was rock solid though, making several stops on a power play midway through the first period that saw the Spartans spend nearly the full two minutes in the Huskies zone. That seemed to settle the Dogs down and not long after, on a power play of their own, Vince Loschiavo buried his 13th goal of the season to give his team a 1-0 lead.

Just over a minute later with a delayed penalty coming to Trinity Western, the Huskies doubled their lead. Landon Kosior drifted down to the right faceoff dot and wired a shot past Spartans netminder Raphael Audet for his fourth goal of the season.

Four minutes into the second period, Carter Stebbings made it 3-0, converting a Ben Tkachuk feed for his 11th of the year, and it seemed like the Huskies were on their way to another convincing win over the Spartans. But instead, they struggled to find consistency and when they did generate scoring chances, Audet held strong.

The Spartans continued to push in the third and with under seven minutes to play, a Mitchell Joss point shot hit Ross in the shoulder before popping up and over the netminder and just over the goal line to trim the lead to two. The goal was Trinity Western’s first against Saskatchewan in three games this season, and the first Ross has given up to the Spartans after posting a pair of shutouts in their first two meetings in Saskatoon.

The Spartans lifted Audet for an extra attacker with two minutes left but could get any more pucks past Ross, and Chantz Petruic salted away the win with an empty-net goal at 19:41.

Despite seeing his personal shutout streak against TWU come to an end, Ross was glad to be back in action and contributing to an important victory.

“When they came out that hard, it was something where I was like, ‘oh, it’s gonna be one of those games,’ but it was also something I was ready for so in the end it worked out and I was just happy to have that good of a game,” he said.

His coach was certainly impressed.

“It’s not an ideal circumstance by any means to have a guy come in who hasn’t played in that amount of time but he’s been working hard in practice, he’s been a great teammate through the whole thing and it’s a credit to him and the professionalism he’s had over the last little bit to stay sharp,” Cote said.

“It was great to know that he was there to back us up.”

The Huskies improve to 18-6-1 with the victory and now face a quick turnaround for the second game of the makeup series, which will take place at 9 a.m. PST (11 a.m. Saskatchewan time) on Tuesday.

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Twitter/X: @RFlahertyGlobal