The Stingers cruised to a 6-1 victory over the Ottawa Gee-Gees last Friday night, in their final game of the fall semester.
The first period was scoreless but the tempo quickly picked up in the second.
With some pressure in the Ottawa zone, Renaud Des Alliers put Concordia on the board just 32 seconds into the period. About eight minutes later, the Stingers extended their lead on the power play. Nicholas Sciangula, who parked himself in front of the Gee-Gees net, banged it past goalie Aaron Barton to make it 2-0 Concordia. A few minutes after that, captain Marc-André Element poked the puck through the legs of an Ottawa defenceman and deked it past Barton as the Stingers ended the second with a 3-0 lead.
Concordia went short-handed 14 seconds into the third as Des Alliers was sent to the box for interference. But it was the Stingers who would capitalize, as Sciangula got his second of the game. A little over seven minutes later, Des Alliers would also get his second of the night. But the Gee-Gees would finally get on the board three minutes after off a penalty shot, taking away netminder Maxime Joyal’s bid for a shutout. Concordia soon got one back as Kyle Kelly netted a goal off a feed from Brad Gager and Element for the final score of 6-1. The Stingers played hard all evening, out shooting Ottawa 45-25.
“This is the way we wanted to end [the fall semester] without a doubt,” said head coach Kevin Figsby after the game.
Figsby also said the team was able to implement his game plan of the evening.
“My pre-game preparation tonight was very short, I wrote four things on the board and I left the [locker] room. Those four things were play hard, play for each other, play together and play with confidence and that was it. And I think we established all four tonight, which is good.”
Sciangula, who finished the night with two goals and what later became the game winner, said that playing as a unit is what made the difference for the Stingers.
“We finally came out and played like a team, everything was going right…. It’s great and it’s going to lead into a good new year.”
The Stingers finish the first half of the season with a 4-12 record for eight points.
Coach Figsby said the team needs to continue to play like they did against Ottawa if they want to turn things around for next half of the season.
“We did a lot of the right things tonight…we had our number one power play unit and we respected our opponents. Those are all things we need to do to improve,” he said.
Sciangula had similar thoughts when it comes to improving for next year.
“We need to play like we played tonight and really play as a team. Tonight, we sucked it up a lot, we took a lot of punches after whistles, and capitalized on the power play, the biggest thing is execution…. If we can win the penalty kill and the power play throughout the game, we’re probably going to win more games,” he said.
On Dec. 27, the Stingers will start a tour in Germany where they will be playing five exhibition games against professional teams. On Jan. 13, their season resumes in Montreal with an 8 p.m. game against McGill. The men will be back at home by Jan. 17 for a 3 p.m. start versus Carleton.
