CALGARY – It was a rare off night for the No. 1 team in the country as the University of Calgary Dinos men's hockey team suffered its first loss in over a month in a 6-2 defeat to Mount Royal Saturday night from Father David Bauer Arena.

Special teams were a key component in this one, as the Cougars scored twice on the power play in ending the Dinos' 10-game win streak.

"The team that wanted it more won," said Dinos head coach Mark Howell. "Right from the drop of the puck to the end of the game, they played really hard, similar to last night. We got outplayed. They worked harder, they won more races, and they played harder on the walls."

It was the visitors who struck first in the sixth minute of play, with Teague Patton leaving the puck for Justin Lies at the blue line. Lies took it towards the centre lane before taking a shot from the ringette line, finding the netting in the top left corner behind Dinos goaltender Carl Stankowski for their first of the evening.

The lead was quickly doubled at 11:08. Despite being on the penalty kill, it was Josh Tarzwell that entered the zone with the puck, taking a shot that went bar down before Blake Stevenson cleaned up the rebound to give the Cougars a 2-0 lead after the first period.

The Dinos had thought they finally found their footing just over five minutes into the second period, but the goal was called back due to goaltender interference. Less than a minute later, Tarzwell found his way onto the goal sheet with what would be his first of three goals throughout the game. Initiated by Connor Bouchard on the power play, a quick backdoor feed found Tarzwell in front of Stankowski allowing him to give the Cougars a three-goal lead.

The Dinos finally lit the lamp at the 7:50 mark on the power play. Quick off the draw to Cougars goaltender Ethan Buenaventura's left, Brendan Lee found the puck before making a fast turn at the hash marks and firing on net to give Calgary their first goal of the game. 

Tarzwell completed his hat trick in the remaining minutes of the second period, retaliating to the Dinos' goal just over a minute later for his second goal of the night, and finishing with another power play marker at 17:55 to give the Cougars a comfortable 5-1 advantage.

Jayden Weins netted one early in the third to close out the scoring for MRU, before the Calgary added one more off the stick of Jake Poole - his ninth of the year - for the final goal of the night.

With the match against the Cougars closing out the first half of the season for the Dinos, Howell reflected on the team's record so far.

"At the end of the day, you look back and we're 15-3," said Howell. "With the amount of young guys on our team, we probably didn't expect that, but we've kind of figured out our identity.

"You have to give Mount Royal credit. They put us in a bad spot. They pushed us and we didn't like it and so we have to learn from that too. Overall, with a 15-3 record, we're in first place and in the end when we look back after a couple of days from now, I think there's lots of positives from the first half of the season, but there's still lots of room to grow for sure."

The Cougars will look to take on the Manitoba Bisons to close out their first half on Dec. 5 and 6. 

-UC-