CALGARY – Using a steady 60 minute effort, the University of Calgary Dinos overwhelmed the visiting Manitoba Bisons, taking the 6-2 victory on Friday night.

BOX SCORE 

Aaron Richards scored the winning goal for Calgary, while Reid Jorgensen had two goals and an assist to bring his yearly total to 26 points. Manitoba leading scorer Blair Macauley had a goal for his Bisons in the losing effort.

The regulation victory was an important one for Calgary, who sat in fourth coming into the weekend series, two points behind Manitoba and two points up on both Lethbridge and UBC. Saturday's rematch with the Bisons now looms as especially vital, as both teams will have a chance to take an outright hold of at least third place going into Calgary's bye week.

Both teams had a brutal time staying out of the penalty box, where they combined for 26 total penalties. Calgary was better at converting on the man-advantage, scoring three power play goals, while Manitoba had one.

Each team had nine shots in the first period, with Calgary taking advantage of both the first and last of those opportunities.

From his back after falling to the ice, Joel Eisenkirch recognized an opportunity with a delayed Manitoba penalty on tap at 1:06, flipping the puck from behind the net out in front to a wide open Cory Pritz. Shaking the initial defender loose, Pritz wristed a shot past the right side of Bisons goaltender Steve Christie to give the Dinos the early 1-0 lead.

Many wise coaches have been saying for years that if you put the puck on net, good things happen, and apparently Luke Egener was listening. With time winding down on the first period, Egener rifled a shot into traffic which caught the shin of a Manitoba defender only to sneak past Christie.

The second period would feature plenty of offence, with each team notching a pair of goals. Manitoba would strike first on a breakaway goal from Mike Hellyer, where he scorched past everyone to deke out Butler to cut the deficit to one.

Calgary would answer back with another winter semester Walker Wintoneak-Aaron Richards' hook-up, as Wintoneak found Richards from behind the net shortly after a killing off a Manitoba penalty.

The Bisons and Dinos would trade goals one more time, with Mike Howarth taking advantage of a bounce off of an initial Eisenkirch blocked shot before Jorgensen answered back on a great cross-ice feed from Tyler Swystun, sliding it past Christie on his left side.

With the score 4-2 going into the third, Calgary would keep pushing, chasing the reigning CIS goaltender of the year out of his net on a Jorgensen tip of an initial Eisenkirch wrist shot. Teegan Moore would add a goal late in the third on a power-play, the beneficiary of great puck movement from Brock Nixon and Egener.

Dustin Butler made 23 saves in the victory, while Steve Christie had 15 saves on 20 shots. Jesse Deckert would face five shots in relief effort in net for Manitoba, steering four of them away.

Calgary head coach Mark Howell seemed satisfied with the victory on Friday.

“It always helps to get that goal right off of the bat,” said Howell. “We did take a pile of penalties in that first period, but we got through it, and our power play definitely helped us later in the game.”

“Butler responded very well from last weekend as well,” continued the coach. “Overall it's a great start, but we have to finish it off tomorrow.”

The weekend series will finish tomorrow night at Father David Bauer, with puck-drop set for 7 p.m. MDT

-UC-