CALGARY – Eleven different Dinos added their name to the score sheet as the University of Calgary Dinos men's hockey team cruised to a commanding 7-2 victory Friday night against the Regina Cougas.

The goal-fest at Father David Bauer Arena saw six different Dinos find the back of the net, with two gaining their first goal of their U SPORTS careers. 

"It's a good start to this season," said newly named captain, Adam Kydd. "We need the older guys to kind of set the tone for everyone as to how the game needs to be played. It seemed to be clicking tonight with Pooler and Stewy, with the younger guys figuring it out as it went along and they got a few first goals tonight, so it was exciting."

Added Jake Poole, who scored twice on the night: "The younger guys all work really hard, like extremely hard, and it's nice to see they all want to play and all want to contribute. There's a lot of skill from all of them – a lot of good players coming in, so it's really nice to have players like that."

It started early for the home team, with Carter Massier scoring just 2:22 into the first frame on a shorthanded breakaway. Less than three minutes later, Poole notched his first of the night on a wide-open net. The tic-tac-toe style play started with Kydd net-front passing back to Mack Stewart, eventually landing the puck on Poole's tape and in the back of the net. The first period ended with Stewart receiving a give-and-go puck from Poole and having no issue tucking it behind Cougars' netminder Justen Maric for a 3-0 lead.

The Cougars tallied their first of the night at the eight-minute mark in the second period. Jackson Doucet saw a shorthanded breakaway opportunity and took it, stuffing the puck past Carl Stankowski's glove side, digging out a 3-1 deficit. However, it wasn't long until the home team took control again, thanks to none other than Poole deking around Maric for the Dinos' fourth of the night. The nail of the second period came courtesy of Logan Hauer on the man-advantage in the last minute of play, heading into the final frame with a 5-1 lead.

The third period saw two Calgary rookies notch their first goal with the Scarlet & Gold. Matt Corbet started off with a lethal shot in the left circle during the third minute of play, followed by Stephen Kirkpatrick who had no problem getting it through the Cougars defence to secure the seventh goal. The final goal of the game came from the visiting team in the 55th minute, with Turner McMillan scoring unassisted, finalizing a 7-2 victory for the Dinos.

"Overall, I liked our pace and our intensity," said Dinos head coach Mark Howell. "We worked on some things this week and cleaned up some stuff after preseason, and the guys executed for the most part."

"They're learning, but as long as they continue to learn how to play fast, be dynamic, be relentless, they're going to get there. We've got some guys that can skate, they've got some speed, so that's the biggest thing is just learning how heavy our league is. That's been the biggest learning curve for all of them."

Looking forward to Saturday night's match up, when the Dinos and Cougars take the ice for a 5 p.m. puck drop, Poole talked about what they needed to work on,

"Penalties for sure. We took too many penalties, and it's hard for everyone to keep in the flow of the game and when you're trying to roll four lines and keep everyone involved, it's hard when every so often you get penalties."

Added Kydd: "We just have to have a good start and let them know we're not just going to be out there for a Sunday skate. We need to keep staying physical and putting pucks behind their defense and forechecking. It starts with a really good start and then set the tone, let them know that we're going to be giving the same effort as we did tonight, if not better."

-UC-