SASKATOON, Sask. - After surrendering an early three goal deficit in the opening period of the Canada West Final, the Saskatchewan Huskies would go on to score six unanswered, leading to a thrilling come-from-behind victory on home ice Friday night (March 7) over the visiting Mount Royal Cougars by a final score of 6-3.
In what was Mount Royal's first appearance in the Canada West Final, the Cougars wasted no time pouncing on the Dogs to kickstart the series scoring. 11 seconds into the first, Kyle Walker found the puck off the opening draw then worked his way across the blue line and ripped a shot over the pad of
Roddy Ross, securing his first goal of the postseason and giving MRU an early 1-0 advantage.
Less than three minutes later, the Cougars' strong start continued as Layton Feist found Josh Tarzwell alone in the slot, allowing MRU's leading playoff scorer to bury his fourth of the playoffs and extending the Coug's lead to 2-0.
As the Dogs worked to find their footing, the Cougars' first period assault continued, eventually leading to Justin Lies netting his second goal of the postseason after Tristan Zandee found Lies for a backdoor tip-in, extending MRU's lead to 3-0 and further silencing an already stunned home crowd.
However, after the first period intermission allowed Saskatchewan to regroup the Dogs would bite back late in the second despite getting out shot 16-6 through the middle frame.
With just over five minutes remaining in the period,
Dawson Holt found a streaking Landon Kosier from behind the goal-line, allowing the Huskies' defenceman to riffle a shot past the blocker of Shane Farkas to open the scoring for the Dogs.
Less than one minute later, former MRU Cougar
Ethan Regnier would tally his first goal of the playoffs, beating Farkas short-side on a tough angle shot and cutting the Huskies' deficit to one with the score now 3-2 through two periods of play.
As the game entered the last twenty minutes and the Huskies fighting to find the equalizer,
Carter Stebbings would do exactly that 7:56 into the final frame as the local Saskatoon product got his stick on a
Parker Gavlas point shot, tipping in his first of the postseason and tying the game 3-3.
Gavlas would finish as the leading point-getter for the Dogs in game one as the fourth-year defenseman posted three assists to his stat sheet.
Later in the third, the Dogs would continue their second half surge after back-to-back goals from
Chase Bertholet and
Vince Loschiavo gave the Huskies a 5-3 lead with just over five minutes remaining, sending nearly 3,000 Huskies faithful into a frenzy.
As time ticked away in the third and MRU on the powerplay, the Cougars would send Farkas to the bench for the 6-4 man advantage. However, Ross and the Huskies penalty kill would hold strong, allowing Stebbings to find the empty cage for his second goal of the game, capping off the comeback and giving Saskatchewan a 6-3 victory in game one of the best-of-three series.
"The start wasn't the best, but that's playoff hockey and that's the way it's going to go sometimes," said Ross after fighting off 38 of 40 shots.
"There's going to be ups and downs and we just stuck with it. We have such a strong belief in this group that I knew whatever was going to happen we were going to come back. I knew this group was going to stick with it."
"I think in the second period, it turned into too loose of a game," said Cougars' head coach Bert Gilling.
"All of a sudden, [Saskatchewan] is a shot away from getting momentum in this rink [and] on the road. We just didn't show a lot of competitive maturity after that first period."
"We were on pucks, we were aggressive, we were attacking, we were moving pucks quick. That's our game. That's the positive we can take to try and build for tomorrow, but we just can't do it for a period and expect a team in a championship final to give us the win."
With Saskatchewan looking to secure their 12th Canada West men's hockey title and their first since the 2019-20 season, puck drop for game two is set for 7:00PM on Saturday (March 8) at Merlis Belsher Place.
