Stingers survive scare with 6-4 win

stingers men's hockey
Defenceman Carl Neill will be an assistant captain in his second season with the Stingers. Archive photo by Alex Hutchins.

Beauregard, Neill with four assists each against Nipissing

The Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team improved to a 11-2-2 record on the season with a 6-4 win against the Nipissing University Lakers on Dec. 1 at the Ed Meagher Arena. Despite the Lakers scoring four power-play goals, Stingers forwards Philippe Sanche and Massimo Carozza each scored twice to help propel Concordia to the win.

Stingers forward Anthony Beauregard continued producing points on the top line with Carozza and Sanche. He had four assists in the win, extending his U Sports-leading point total on the season to 34 points. Head coach Marc-André Élement had high praise for the trio of Sanche, Beauregard and Carozza.

“They’re really good,” Élement said with a laugh. “They’re performing, they’re battling and they’re working hard. This is how we’re going to have success, when they’re doing all the little details to have success.”

Carozza opened the scoring just 36 seconds into the game, scoring in the slot off a pass from Beauregard. Sanche doubled the Stingers lead on the power play seven minutes later, when his attempted pass from the corner took a bounce off a Lakers defenceman and went past goalie Domenic Graham. Sanche, who started the season injured, was playing in his 10th game this season, and scored his sixth and seventh goals of the year.

6-4 win
Stingers defenceman Alexandre Gosselin skates by a Lakers forward during their game on Dec. 1. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

“It’s huge,” Élement said about having Sanche back in the lineup. “He’s one of the top players in the country […] He’s the smallest player in the league, but he plays the hardest. He blocks shots, and he’s just a great leader.”

The Lakers scored a power-play goal late in the first period to cut the Stingers’ lead down to 2-1 after the opening frame. Sanche added his second of the game early in the second period to restore the two-goal lead. The Lakers capitalized on some undisciplined Concordia play in the second period to score two power-play goals and tie the game at 3-3 heading into the third period.

In total, the Stingers had 12 penalties resulting in 40 minutes, including 10-minute misconduct penalties on defenceman Philippe Charbonneau in the first period, and forward Alexis Pépin in the second period. The Stingers had to kill off 10 penalties, and all four of the Lakers goals were scored on the power play.

“Sometimes we put ourselves in situations where we’re prone to getting penalties, so we have to learn to kind of avoid those situations so we don’t put ourselves in a tough spot,” said captain Philippe Hudon. “It sucks, but we have to learn from it.”

In a two-minute span in the middle of the third period, the Stingers scored three goals to put the game out of reach for Nipissing. Carozza scored off a pass from Beauregard, before forward Antoine Masson took advantage of a bad line change by the Lakers to score on a breakaway. Forward Charles-Eric Legare capped off the sequence by capitalizing on a rebound off a shot from forward Jean-Philippe Beaulieu.

“It was a big sequence for us,” said defenceman Carl Neill, who also finished the game with four assists, two of which came from the first two of the three quick goals. “After the second, it was 3-3 and they were still in the game. We wanted to turn things our way, and we were lucky we got a few lucky bounces so things turned out the right way.”

The Stingers’ next game is on Dec. 2 against the Laurentian Voyageurs. It will be their last game before the winter break.

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