Huskies Bite Back

You can’t keep the national champs down.

The Saint Mary’s Huskies erased a three-goal deficit in the second period and roared back for a 4-3 victory over the St. Francis Xavier X-Men in Game 2 of their Atlantic Universities Hockey Conference semifinal Sunday night before nearly 2,500 fans at the Halifax Forum. SMU evens the best-of-five series at 1-1.

Defenceman David MacDonald, pinching in on an odd-man rush, corralled a rebound off a Lucas Bloodoff shot and beat St. F.X. goalie Joseph Perricone for the winning goal with only 3:27 left in the third period.

"I was just trying to drive the net and hope for a rebound and it was there and luckily I popped it in," MacDonald said.

"The coaches told us to stay positive when we went down 3-0. Everybody fell on board with that and we went out there and executed and it worked out for us."

It’s the first win for the reigning CIS champions over St. F.X. this season after going 0-4 during the regular season and losing Game 1 5-3 Friday night in Antigonish.

Bloodoff, Mike Danton and Chris MacKinnon also scored for the Huskies, who outshot the X-Men 34-25. Scott Brannon, with a pair, and Chris Hulit answered for St. F.X.

Game 3 is Tuesday night at the Forum.

The teams came out in the first period trying to set the tone with grit and muscle.

Brannon opened the scoring when he deftly tipped Josh Day’s point shot past SMU goalie Neil Conway at the 13:12 mark. Just over two minutes later, the St. F.X. freshman forward put his team up 2-0 as the trailer on an odd-man rush. Conway stopped Matthew Bragg’s shot but the rebound came out to Brannon in the slot and he flipped the puck over a fallen Conway.

Chris Hulit on a splendid solo effort gave St. F.X. a three-goal advantage. The fifth-year X-Men co-captain faked a shot as he crossed the SMU blue-line freezing defenceman Andrew Hotham. Hulit wheeled around Hotham as the defenceman fell to the ice and snapped a shot high over Conway’s shoulder.

"Anything in the playoffs can happen whether you go up three goals or go down by three goals," Bloodoff said. "You have to keep your emotions in check and you have to keep going. That’s the way the playoffs work."

The Huskies got on the scoreboard at the 12:09 mark of the middle frame, 10 seconds into a power play. Bloodoff, parked in front of Joseph Perricone, chipped a backhand shot over the St. F.X. goalie. The bruising winger had a strong period laying out heavy hits which seemed to turn the tide in the home team’s favour.

"Bloody’s great; he hits a lot, he can score goals and he’s just a complete player," MacDonald said. "When a guy like that’s going, he can really motivate the whole team."

"I think everyone was playing a more physical role tonight," Bloodoff added. "That was our first problem up at St. F.X.; we weren’t as physical as were tonight. Especially myself, I wanted to really focus to be on the body tonight and be physical. If you have your feet going and laying the body, then the rest comes."

SMU could have lost any momentum when the game was delayed for nearly 20 minutes in the second period while maintenance staff fixed the glass in the St. F.X. end.

But the Huskies continued the pressure and late in the period Danton responded. After the X-Men’s Brett Morrison couldn’t clear the puck from out of his zone, Brad Smith fed a quick pass to Danton in the slot and the former NHLer snapped a shot over Perricone’s glove with 33 seconds left.

MacKinnon completed the comeback 9:26 into the third period when he knotted the score at three-all with a power-play marker.

Brannon acknowledged no lead is safe against the Huskies and his team realizes that.

"We didn’t play our game; we sat back and they capitalized," Brannon said. "When we get the lead we have to keep going and we didn’t do that tonight.

"But no one thought this series was going to be an easy rise. We’ll learn from this one and won’t do that again."

Varsity Reds 3, Axemen 2 (4OT): At Fredericton, UNB has taken a commanding 2-0 lead after winning the Game 2 marathon in the fourth overtime.

Scoring information was not available at press time.

Game 3 is Thursday night in Wolfville.