Stingers victorious over Redmen in final game of the season
After losing last year’s Corey Cup to the Redmen, the Stingers battled hard and claimed a 4-2 victory over their crosstown rivals in a Friday night thriller.
Concordia came out firing on all cylinders with forward Julien Rainville-Avon opening the scoring with his third goal of the season. Stingers goaltender Miguel Sullivan, who was starting in only his second game since Christmas, was tracking the puck well on Friday, giving his team plenty of confidence.
“Sullivan played a huge game for us and came up big on several occasions. Everyone definitely felt comfortable with him in between the pipes,” said Stingers captain Olivier Hinse.
Defenceman Vincent Barnard of McGill took a cross-checking penalty with 1:47 left in the first period, however Concordia wasn’t able to get anything past Redmen goalie Jacob Gervais-Chouinard, who played solid for McGill.
The first period came to an end with a score of 1-0 in favour of the Stingers who managed 17 shots on goal, to McGill’s eight.
The second period began with Concordia forward Jessyko Bernard heading to the penalty box for a goalie interference penalty. The Redmen power-play, however, was ineffective. Their set up in the zone was not working and resulted in several shorthanded scoring chances for Concordia.
For the most part of the second period, Concordia had total control. McGill couldn’t break out of their own zone and opened up many scoring chances for the Stingers line consisting of Dany Potvin, Rainville-Avon and Antoine Masson.
With 11:54 left to play in the period, Stingers defenceman David Hunter tripped forward Rock Regimbald of McGill who was rewarded with a penalty shot. Sullivan stood his ground and made a big save on Regimbald who shot low blocker side.
The second period consisted of a lot of high paced action and scoring chances for both teams. At the nine minute mark, Raphael Lafontaine capitalized off of a broken play behind the McGill net and shot the puck past a sprawling Chouinard.
“I saw that the puck was free and took advantage of it,” said Lafontaine. “It was a key moment in the game for sure.”
Not even thirty seconds passed before Stingers forward Bernard, added another goal for his team off of a similar broken play in the McGill zone.
McGill made sure not to go down without a fight and scored on their third power play of the game. McGill forward Mathieu Pompei received a slap pass from the blue line and tipped it into the open net cutting Concordia’s lead to one goal.
Penalties were an issue for the Stingers as the team took seven penalties.
“Penalties are a part of the game but we need to work on controlling our emotions,” said head coach Marc-André Element. “We let things get a little out of hand in the third period, the refs did a good job at controlling it but we definitely need more composure.”
The final period of the night saw sloppy play from both sides. McGill managed to capitalize on a power play, with Redmen forward Daniel Milne making it a 3-2 game.
McGill pulled their goaltender for the extra attacker with two minutes to go in the period but it was to no avail as Stingers forward Alexandros Soumakis iced the game with an empty net goal sealing a 4-2 victory for Concordia.
“It was huge to get this win tonight,” said Hinse. “It confirmed that we can beat them in big games which is a big confidence boost.”
Concordia finished their season with a 10-12-6 record and solidified their spot in this year’s playoffs.
“We showed that we can compete with a team like McGill and they now know what to expect from us,” said Element.
The Stingers will now head to the playoffs where they will play the McGill Redmen in a three game playoff series.
