CALGARY – One dominating period was enough for the University of Manitoba Bisons on Saturday evening, scoring all three of their goals in the second to defeat the University of Calgary Dinos by a score of 3-2 at the Father David Bauer Arena.
BOX SCORE
The Bisons outshot the Dinos 15-3 in the second frame, erasing an early 1-0 deficit and forcing the Dinos to play catch-up from then-on-out. Manitoba relied on a total team effort, as no Bison registered multiple points in the match.
After clobbering the Bisons 6-1 on Friday night, the Dinos seemed poised for another strong effort against the no. 9 nine ranked team in the country, getting on the board first courtesy of an Aaron Richards tip-in off of a Reid Jorgensen blast from the point late in the first.
However despite narrowly missing on several great chances in the first, with two coming from assistant captain Mike Hellyer, Manitoba remained confident in their game plan and did not let up coming out of the break.
David Brown got the Bisons on track with a nice put-back in front of Calgary goaltender Dustin Butler to tie the game, and shortly thereafter Tyler Dittner put Manitoba up for good, one-timing a beautiful feed from behind the net from rookie Blair Macauley. Macauley gave the Dinos fits all night, continually using his speed to break Calgary's rhythm in their own zone, and registering four shots to boot.
Calin Wild would get even on Butler late in the second after being robbed of a prior chance on the three-on-two. Successfully deterring strong Calgary pressure in the Bisons zone, Manitoba would create another odd-man rush in front of Butler, which Wild took full advantage of to ice the game for the visitors.
Calgary would get another goal from their captain Richards, who buried the rebound created from another hard shot from Jorgensen, but despite admirable pressure late in the third, could not complete the comeback. Teegan Moore had the best individual chance to tie it, narrowly missing on a fantastic cross-ice pass from Torrie Wheat.
While perturbed by the loss, head coach Mark Howell gave full credit to the visiting Bisons.
“I think it's pretty obvious that the team that wanted it won tonight,” said the coach. “I think they outworked us for the first 50 minutes. Once we started getting desperate in the late-going, things started going our way, but too little too late.”
“We can talk all we want about how we played our systems well last night, but it just comes down to work ethic” continued Howell. “The better team won tonight.”
For Calgary, the loss sullies what could have been an excellent weekend to jockey for position in the standings. Both the Bisons and Dinos ended up with two points on the weekend, as did the fourth place Saskatchewan Huskies, who lost both of their games to the Alberta Golden Bears in overtime. Thus nothing changes in the standings aside from games played, and Manitoba remains slightly ahead in the race for a home playoff series, keeping their two point lead in second place with two games in hand on Calgary.
Manitoba will return home next weekend for a big series against the no. 2 ranked Bears, who clinched a playoff spot this weekend with their victories over Saskatchewan. Alberta remains 11 points ahead of the second place Bisons.
Calgary will board the bus and head to Regina next weekend to play the Cougars, who recently enjoyed their bye. The Dinos do not return to Bauer until their final series of the season on February 19th and 20th, where they will host the UBC Thunderbirds.
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