After being eliminated from the OUA semi-finals by the TMU Bold last week, Brock’s men’s hockey team lost their third game in a row, falling to the McGill Redbirds on March. 9th by a score of 2-5.
The Badgers opened the game by conceding an early interference penalty to the Redbirds, bringing them up to a playoff-leading 21st time playing shorthanded. McGill’s Charles-Antoine Dumont scored on the Redbirds’ first shot of the man advantage, putting the Badgers behind 0-1 five minutes into the first period.
Less than a minute and a half later, the Badgers surrendered another goal when the OUA playoff-leading scorer Eric Uba buried McGill’s 0-2 goal in tight to the Badgers’ crease.
Giving up goals in bunches has been a struggle for the Badgers thus far in the postseason. Uba’s goal marked the fourth time in six games that they have given up consecutive goals less than five minutes apart and the third time they had given up back-to-back goals less than three minutes apart.
Now finding themselves in a significant hole with over five-sixths of the match remaining, Brock had to force the issue against the Redbirds to try and even the score. Despite managing to bring the shot total back to an even 12-12 after one, the Badgers were unable to solve opposing goaltender Alexis Shank and remained down by two going into the next period.
In a game that had already featured several classic Badger patterns, Brock found the back of the net one minute and 50 seconds into the second, to this point the fifth time in six postseason games the team had been able to score less than three-and-a-half minutes into a period. Captain Jared Marino collected the assist as Ryan Stepien scored his team-leading third goal of the playoffs as the Badgers brought the score to 1-2.
It was not long afterwards that McGill re-asserted their two-goal cushion. Brock seemed to take their foot off the gas after coming within one and ended up surrendering 20 shots in the second alone, more than goalie Connor Ungar could stave off single-handedly. The Redbirds went up 1-3 just past the six-minute mark in the second period and, with less than five to pay in the middle frame, stretched their lead to 1-4.
Just like the previous period, after giving up two unanswered goals, Brock came out firing to begin the third and again scored almost immediately to make it 2-4. Defenceman Ryan Thompson carried the puck deep into the Redbirds’ zone before finding Justin Brack in the slot at 1:25, now the sixth time in as many games that they’d scored less than three-and-a-half minutes into a period.
Despite making the score close, upping the ante, and limiting McGill to only six shots, the Badgers couldn’t cut further into the lead. Brock pulled the goalie with plenty of time still on the clock and unfortunately gave up an empty netter to Uba for his second of the game, losing 5-2.
Despite the loss, Brock could still have plenty of hockey to play this season. The Badgers will travel to Toronto for two quarter-final games next week, first on Thursday, March. 14th and again the following day.
For their full schedule and updates on their opponents, go to gobadgers.ca.
