MHKY: Maser's OT winner sends Dinos past Bears
March 3, 2023
CALGARY - The No. 1 University of Calgary Dinos men's hockey team defeated the No. 5 University of Alberta Golden Bears 3-2 in Game 1 of the Canada West Final on Friday night.
Forward Josh Maser deflected home the game-winning goal at the 5:41 mark of overtime to send a packed Father David Bauer Arena into bedlam.
The victory has Calgary one win away from their first conference title since 1996.
"They're a great team, we knew what we were getting into at the start of the series, that it was going to be a fast game," Maser explained. "It was a different style of play than last weekend, Sask was a bit heavier, and it was hard to get our cycle game going. Our approach to this series is to create as much momentum as we can, if we can get the puck down low and start cycling it, I think we'd have a lot of success."
Both teams came out to play, having an electrifying start while keeping both netminders busy and forcing them to make some big saves. Notably, Golden Bears goaltender Ethan Kruger had to make a cross-crease save to stop a two-on-one play and also had to use the end of his stick to stop a powerful shot from Dinos' first team all-star Noah King.
However, Alberta's Curtis Trolley was the only one to get a goal in the first period, as he was left open in front of the crease and deflected in a pass from Josh Paterson to give his team an early lead.
The Golden Bears served the first penalty of the game in the second period and the Dinos took full advantage of their chance. After making some rounds in the Alberta zone, Calgary's Riley Stotts found an open Jaden Joseph in front of the net who finished the play to tie the game.
Calgary took the lead past the halfway point of the middle period when Bradley Schoonbaert wrapped around the back of the net and was denied on a scoring chance, but Max Patterson picked up the rebound to make it 2-1.
Just 38 seconds later, Alberta responded by finding an open Josh Prokop in the slot who controlled the puck and then ripped it to the back of the net to even the score.
Nevertheless, the evenly matched teams could not settle the score in 60 minutes, forcing the game to go into overtime. At the 5:41 mark of the extra period, King took a shot from the point and Maser got enough of a touch to elude the Alberta netminder.
"We were talking about how many shots we had and that we lacked traffic in front of the net, so that's what we did going into overtime," said Maser.
Carl Tetachuk made 31 saves on 33 attempts in the Calgary net, including three off breakaways. Kruger notched 38 in the Golden Bears' crease.
"It was another great game from Carl, it's so nice having a goalie back there we can trust and he made some big saves for us, especially at the start of the game," he continued.
"It was a tight game, in one play it's done in overtime, I think we had some lapses during the game but I think we can build off of that. There's no new game plan for tomorrow, we just need to stick to our game and how we play and just execute a little bit better and play a full 60 minutes," said Alberta's Prokop.
"Our goalie was definitely the player of the game for us, he bailed us out and made some massive saves and he's always awesome for us."
Game 2 of the Canada West Final will take place on Saturday at Father David Bauer Arena with a 7 p.m. puck drop. Tickets are available at GoDinos.com/BuyTickets.
Forward Josh Maser deflected home the game-winning goal at the 5:41 mark of overtime to send a packed Father David Bauer Arena into bedlam.
The victory has Calgary one win away from their first conference title since 1996.
"They're a great team, we knew what we were getting into at the start of the series, that it was going to be a fast game," Maser explained. "It was a different style of play than last weekend, Sask was a bit heavier, and it was hard to get our cycle game going. Our approach to this series is to create as much momentum as we can, if we can get the puck down low and start cycling it, I think we'd have a lot of success."
Both teams came out to play, having an electrifying start while keeping both netminders busy and forcing them to make some big saves. Notably, Golden Bears goaltender Ethan Kruger had to make a cross-crease save to stop a two-on-one play and also had to use the end of his stick to stop a powerful shot from Dinos' first team all-star Noah King.
However, Alberta's Curtis Trolley was the only one to get a goal in the first period, as he was left open in front of the crease and deflected in a pass from Josh Paterson to give his team an early lead.
The Golden Bears served the first penalty of the game in the second period and the Dinos took full advantage of their chance. After making some rounds in the Alberta zone, Calgary's Riley Stotts found an open Jaden Joseph in front of the net who finished the play to tie the game.
Calgary took the lead past the halfway point of the middle period when Bradley Schoonbaert wrapped around the back of the net and was denied on a scoring chance, but Max Patterson picked up the rebound to make it 2-1.
Just 38 seconds later, Alberta responded by finding an open Josh Prokop in the slot who controlled the puck and then ripped it to the back of the net to even the score.
Nevertheless, the evenly matched teams could not settle the score in 60 minutes, forcing the game to go into overtime. At the 5:41 mark of the extra period, King took a shot from the point and Maser got enough of a touch to elude the Alberta netminder.
"We were talking about how many shots we had and that we lacked traffic in front of the net, so that's what we did going into overtime," said Maser.
Carl Tetachuk made 31 saves on 33 attempts in the Calgary net, including three off breakaways. Kruger notched 38 in the Golden Bears' crease.
"It was another great game from Carl, it's so nice having a goalie back there we can trust and he made some big saves for us, especially at the start of the game," he continued.
"It was a tight game, in one play it's done in overtime, I think we had some lapses during the game but I think we can build off of that. There's no new game plan for tomorrow, we just need to stick to our game and how we play and just execute a little bit better and play a full 60 minutes," said Alberta's Prokop.
"Our goalie was definitely the player of the game for us, he bailed us out and made some massive saves and he's always awesome for us."
Game 2 of the Canada West Final will take place on Saturday at Father David Bauer Arena with a 7 p.m. puck drop. Tickets are available at GoDinos.com/BuyTickets.