Concordia defeated the Guelph Gryphons 4-2 on Saturday
Despite great goaltending from Guelph Gryphons netminder Jason Da Silva, the Concordia Stingers men’s hockey team cruised to a 4-2 win at Ed Meagher Arena on Oct. 21. They won their second game of the weekend after a 5-3 win against the Brock Badgers Friday night, and improved their record to 3-0-1 on the season.
“It was kind of a physical game again,” said Stingers head coach Marc-André Élement. “Couple of breakdowns, but we were good and it was a big weekend for us.”
The Stingers opened the scoring just two minutes into the game, after forward Charles-Éric Légaré threw the puck to the net from a weird angle. The puck trickled through Da Silva who never saw it.
Just a few minutes later, while the Stingers were on the power play, they gave up a breakaway to Gryphons forward Todd Winder, who slid the puck through the legs of Stingers goalie Marc-Antoine Turcotte to tie the game at 1-1.
To end the period, Stingers forward Anthony Beauregard scored on the power play to give the Stingers a 2-1 lead heading into the second period. All night, both the Gryphons and Stingers were given many power play chances. Overall, the Gryphons committed 10 minor penalties while the Stingers committed seven minors.
“We play with an in-their-head mentality,” Élement said. “We’re really disciplined, we really want to make them skate, and when we do that, they take penalties on us, and that’s exactly what we want.”
Nine minutes into the second period, Winder of the Gryphons scored his second goal of the game on a two-on-one rush up the ice to make the score 2-2. Turcotte was injured on the play and left the game. He was replaced by back-up goalie Antoine Dagenais, who went on to stop all 17 shots he faced in the rest of the game.
“He played really well in Lakehead [during the pre-season] so I wasn’t worried at all,” Élement said about Dagenais. “We have a lot of depth, and we’re happy about his performance tonight.”
With just over four minutes to go in the second period, Stingers forward Alexis Pépin scored on the power play thanks to a slick pass from linemate Scott Oke. The goal gave the Stingers a 3-2 lead, and it ended up being the game-winning goal.
“We caught them on a line change,” Pépin said while describing his goal. “I went around the defence and just took a shot. I thought it was the best play to do, and it went in so it was a pretty good goal.”
In the third period, Stingers defenceman Carl Neill scored his first goal as a Stinger just four minutes into the frame. The score would remain 4-2 as the Stingers went on to win their third game of the season.
The Stingers will now play the Carleton Ravens at home on Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Main photo by Alex Hutchins.