CALGARY – Led by multi-point performances by Brock Nixon, Torrie Wheat and Teegan Moore, the University of Calgary Dinos powered their way to a 4-1 victory over the UBC Thunderbirds.
“It was nice to get a win,” Dinos head coach Mark Howell noted after the game. “That's step one on the weekend, you want to go into every weekend wanting to sweep and we've accomplished step one of that.”
Both teams entered the game with scoring in mind, with both Dinos goalie Dustin Butler and T-Birds goalie Jordan White trading big saves in the first part of the opening frame.
Dinos forward Brock Nixon would be the first to crack the netminders, where at 9:38 he sniped a goal from the slot, beating White over the shoulder off of a perfect feed from the games third star, Teegan Moore.
After Nixon drew first blood, the Dinos power-play started to heat up. Joel Eisenkirch pitched in with his first goal of the 09/10 campaign, making good on a setup from Moore and Nixon four minutes into the second.
Cory Pritz followed Eisenkirch's lead by netting his second goal of the year on the man-advantage, firing a point shot through traffic and the five-hole of White at 17:27 in the second.
After a fruitless first 40, the T-Birds picked up the pieces early in the third. Matt Pepe was responsible for UBC's best chance when, six minutes into the third, he snapped his stick in half trying to rip a slap shot at a nearly empty net.
The Dinos responded to this pressure at 7:40 in the third with Wheat's eighth goal of the season. Luke Egener and Eric Frere notched assists on the goal that went in after Wheat got into the UBC end on a two on one before accounting for the Dinos' fourth goal of the evening.
Calgary's dominance would be questioned two minutes later when UBC's penalty killing unit would score the final goal of the game. Matthew Schneider scored the goal after picking up a rebound from Brennan Sonne's initial shot.
“I thought we were way better defensively than we were in a long time,” Howell commented after the game. ” We didn't give them a lot of chances until later in the third when we got a little bit lax. We only gave them nine scoring chances, which is really good.”
Overall, the Dinos efforts on the power-play are what won them the game with two goals on five attempts while the T-Birds went zero for five in the same regard. The Dinos outshot the visitors as well, by a count of 29-23.
The 4-8-1 T-Birds will not have to wait long for another shot at the now 7-4-2 Dinos when these two teams meet on Saturday evening for another 7 p.m. puck drop at Father David Bauer Arena.
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