By Arfa Ayub, Staff Contributor
With Thanksgiving approaching, the Dalhousie Tigers men’s hockey team gave themselves something to be thankful about: a 6–2 exhibition victory against the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers last Friday at Memorial Arena.
The Tigers played a complete game, with great defensive zone coverage and the offence creating and finishing their chances.
“Today I think we played pretty well, the team did a good job, executed the game plan,all the lines showed up and our goalie Chris Wall had a great game and made us really good. I guess we came out with the win, which is pretty good even if it’s pre-season,” said Francois Gauthier, forward for the Dalhousie Tigers.
The Tigers opened the scoring in the first period, with a nice goal by Brad McConnell after a great natural zone pass.
The visitors replied with a goal of their own, after a shot went off the top of the net and Ryan Stoddard jumped on the rebound, making no mistake.
The first period ended with the Tigers dominating the Panthers and the score tied at 1–1.
The second period started the same way the first had ended. The Tigers scored their second just 1:47 into the period. Benjamin Breault put it in after receiving a great pass from the point.
It was a penalty-filled game for the Tigers, with the hosts called for hooking after scoring their second goal. The Tigers killed the penalty, only to take another.
“Yeah, we must stop taking penalties,” said Tigers coach Pete Belliveau following the game. Penalties seem to have become a bad habit for the Tigers.
Despite the the penalties, the Tigers still dominated the game.
The Tigers nearly made it 4–1 after a great chance as a Dalhousie player managed to get through the traffic in front of the net and shoot a wrist shot that went just wide.
Gauthier scored the Tigers fourth goal of the game. It was Gauthier’s second two-point game in a row. He scored and assisted two weeks ago, against Acadia.
“I just want to do whatever I can do to make the team better and show up every night and hopefully everybody is going to do that, then we can get some points and make the play-offs this year,” said Gauthier.
As the second period wound down, the Tigers continued to dominate adding one more goal before the period was over, the score now 5-1.
With a minute left in the second a scramble erupted in the middle of rink, near the boards as the Panthers started to get frustrated.
Three minutes into the third period, Dalhousie’s Benoit Gervais was called for a 2 minute hit to the head penalty and was given a 10 minute misconduct to go along with the penalty.
Shea Kewin scored the sixth Tigers goal of the game after carrying the puck through the neutral zone and shooting top left corner.
With Dal in total control of the game, the only problem the Tigers had was staying out of the penalty box. After scoring the sixth goal in the third period the Tigers were called for three penalties in the last ten minutes of the game.
“The rookies are coming in and the veterans came back in and the team is getting to know each other and we are doing pretty good so far,” said Gauthier.
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