CALGARY – Powered by a four-goal second period, the University of Calgary Dinos men's hockey team rallied from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the MacEwan Griffins 6-4 on Friday evening at Father David Bauer Arena.

Coming off the annual winter break, the win keeps the defending conference champions atop the Canada West standings with a record of 15-3-1. Despite the setback, MacEwan maintains their hold of the final playoff spot at 6-12-1.

The Griffins wasted no time stunning the home crowd with a goal 11 seconds into the game. An initial shot by Ethan Strang was stopped by Carl Tetachuk, however Kole Gable was parked in front of the net and muscled in the rebound. 

Outshot 15-7 in the first period, MacEwan managed to take a 2-0 lead into the intermission on a late tally by Marc Pasemko.

The unpredictability of the first period paled in comparison to the events of the second. The Griffins made it a 3-0 game on a power play goal courtesy of Loeden Schaufler.

Just over a minute later, the Dinos' offence awoke. Calgary's top scorer Colson Gengenbach got it started as he finished off a sweet cross-ice feed from Noah King. The Dinos captain got a goal of his own shortly later to cut the deficit to one.

Later in the middle frame, it was Brendan Lee and Tyson Upper who found the back of the net to put Calgary ahead for the first time at 4-3. However, the lead was short-lived, as the Griffins capitalized on an odd-man rush capped off by Brendan Boyle.

The Dinos broke the 4-4 tie less than six minutes into the third period on a slick dish from Riley Stotts down low to Jake Gricius. 

Max Patterson made it a two-goal game in the late stages to round out the scoring.

Tetachuk finished with 19 saves, while Ashton Abel turned away 34 attempts in the MacEwan net.

After the game, Stotts, who now has 18 assists on the season, shared some insights into his and his teammates' mindsets despite trailing big on the scoreboard early.

"I just do what I can to help the team out as much as possible, playing with good players helps. We push ourselves in practice each day throughout the weekend and we try to transfer everything we do throughout the week into the games during the weekend. I think that's the biggest thing for us."

The Dinos and Griffins will travel to Edmonton for Saturday's rematch at the Downtown Community Arena. Puck drop is set for 5 p.m.

-UC-