Courtesy: Huskie Athletics
Saskatchewan misses Canada West playoffs

Griffins edge Huskies in a shoot-out

Feb 1, 2025 | 9:36 PM

The Huskie women’s hockey team’s Canada West playoff hopes were dashed on Saturday night. The MacEwan Griffins defeated Saskatchewan 3-2 in a shoot-out at Merlis Belsher Place. The Regina Cougars hold down the third and final playoff spot in the standings. The Huskies are eight points behind the U of R with four games remining. Even if the U of S tied the Cougars in points, Regina won the regular season series.

Huskie head coach Steve Kook elected to look at the positives when asked about missing the playoffs. “You don’t feel good about it, but you feel good about taking 3 out of 4 (weekend) points, you feel good about the second and third period and you feel good about transferring some of the things we talked about in video into the game.”

The Griffins, who for the second night had just 15 skaters due to injury, opened the scoring mid-way through the first period on a Jennifer Andrash power play goal. MacEwan widened the lead on a Rian Santos tally with 1:40 remaining in the opening frame. “We didn’t have a very good first period”, said Kook. “I thought our second and third were good.”

Huskie veteran forward, Brownyn Boucher, who had the lone marker in Friday’s 1-0 win over the Griffins, put the Huskies on the board 27 seconds into the second period on a tip from a Kendra Zuchotski shot on the power play. The home-side’s second power play goal came with 4:03 left in the middle frame when Jayde Cadieux notched her fourth goal of the season.

There was no scoring in the third period as Griffin goalie Brianna Sank (34 save) and the Huskies’ Colby Wilson (30 saves) made some big stops in the final 20 minutes. The U of S had to kill off back-to-back penalties to start the third period which prevented Kook from rolling lines as he would have liked. “Some of our key people on the offensive side kill as well. Then you have to give them a bit of a rest to make sure their batteries are re-juiced.”

After a five-minute 3-on-3 session solved nothing, the game went to a shoot-out. Griffins’ 3rd-year defender Shaelyn Hopkins scored in the sixth round to lift the visitors to the win. MacEwan has four victories in 24 games this season.

The 5-13-4-2 Huskies return to action on February 7th and 8th when the UBC Thunderbirds visit Merlis Belsher Place.

wray.morrison@pattisonmedia.com

X: @wraymorrison

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