(Image Credit: Electric Umbrella Images Ltd./Huskie Athletics)

By Ryan Flaherty

quarterfinal bound

Cougars sweep Huskies to snag top East Division seed

Feb 14, 2026 | 10:32 PM

A slow start proved costly as the Huskies men’s hockey team fell 6-4 to the Mount Royal Cougars in their Canada West regular season finale on Saturday, dropping the Dogs down to second place in the East Division standings.

The Cougars raced out to a four-goal lead then held off a furious Huskies comeback effort to secure the top seed and a bye through to the conference semifinals.

“They’re a good team, they came prepared, they were loaded for bear. They had the rest and lots of motivation to come and give us a difficult path, so give them credit. I thought they played well, they played hard. We did at times, we just didn’t have enough of it consistently,” head coach Brandin Cote said.

“At the same time, we got banged up and we do have a lot of guys sick so it’s no excuse but it’s just one of those weekends where everything that could have went wrong, went wrong for us.”

One night after dropping a 3-2 decision to MRU, the Huskies still had a chance to finish first with a win in Saturday’s rematch. But it was the Cougars who started hot, with Josh Tarzwell opening the scoring on the power play followed by back-to-back goals by Teague Patton, all in a span of less than four minutes, to take a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes of play.

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The third goal prompted Cote to replace starting goaltender Nolan Maier with Jordan Kooy, but the bench boss noted that the change wasn’t due to Maier’s performance.

“It wasn’t on Nolan at all. I thought we hung him out to dry. It was very similar to what we did against Regina at home with Kooysie in net. (Nolan) understood it. I thought Jordan came in and battled really hard for us,” Cote said.

Mount Royal added to its advantage on a second-period marker by Vaughn Watterodt before the Huskies started to find their offensive footing. Chase Bertholet got the visitors on the board midway through the frame and the Dogs followed up with several good chances but Cougars netminder Shane Farkas held the fort, keeping the score at 4-1 heading to the third.

Dawson Holt trimmed the gap to a pair on a Huskies man advantage early in the final period but Kyle Walker answered with a power play goal of his own just before the midway mark.

Saskatchewan kept fighting, with Cade Hayes tipping in his fifth of the season at the 11:26 mark. Then with just over two minutes left and the Dogs net empty, Chantz Petruic caught a break as his goalmouth pass attempt banked off a Cougars defender and past Farkas to pull the Huskies within one.

However, the wind came out of the sails 30 seconds later as Dawson Holt was called for slashing while trying to dislodge the puck from underneath a prone Walker. The controversial call took away USask’s 6-on-5 advantage and Watterodt sealed the game with an empty net goal in the waning moments.

“That’s a tough one. I mean, the guy has the puck under his pants and we’re trying to get it, we’re pushing for the tying goal. They called it a slash, it wasn’t a slash. I don’t have much to say about it. I thought it was an inopportune call at the wrong time,” Cote said.

“Disappointing but at the same time we put ourselves in a position where we’re having to push there.”

With the loss, the Huskies finish the season at 19-7-1-1. They still get to host a playoff series as they will take on the Alberta Golden Bears in a best-of-three quarterfinal next weekend at Merlis Belsher Place.

“The positives are we get to get right back on the horse, get home and face an archrival, which is good. If anything, this will light a bit of a fire in our belly to kind of flush the regular season out and take the good and hopefully right the ship a bit in terms of some of the inconsistencies in our game and look forward to playoffs,” Cote said.

The Huskies and Golden Bears will kick off their series on Friday, Feburary 20 at 7 p.m. Every Huskies playoff game can be heard on the free HuskieFAN app.

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