EDMONTON – The University of Calgary Dinos men's hockey team utilized a potent power play to knock off the MacEwan Griffins 6-4 in Game 1 of their best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series on Friday night at the Downtown Community Arena.

The Dinos connected three times on the man advantage. First-year forward Hayden Pakkala scored twice, including the game-winner on the power play late in the second period, and added an assist, while Brendan Lee also scored two goals to help pace the Dinos in the win.

Mack Stewart and Jake Poole added singles, while Carl Stankowski made 29 saves in the Game 1 win.

Myles Gauld, Ethan Sundar, Sam Simard and Dwayne Jean Jr all scored for the Griffins, while Brent Bamber added two assists in the loss for MacEwan.

"Our power play was good, but we're not going to win playing the way we played today. MacEwan did lots of good things, and we weren't great defensively, and we weren't playing playoff hockey. We had far too many turnovers," said Dinos head coach Mark Howell.

"We got the win, which is good, but we have to be a lot better than that if we want to win a second game."

MacEwan jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 8:49 mark when Gauld jumped on a puck from behind the goal line and banked it in off of Stankowski's pad.

Just under three minutes later the Dinos would tie it at 1-1 with a power play marker from Lee after the veteran forward would beat Carson Ironside with a perfect shot from the slot through traffic.

Pakkala gave Calgary a 2-1 lead with 3:01 left when he made a nice move around a Griffins defender after a big hit in the neutral zone and beat Ironside over the blocker.

Then Lee came out from behind the net and took advantage of some open space in the slot just 2:13 later to give the visitors a 3-1 lead.

Despite finding themselves in a two-goal hole after 20 minutes, the Griffins didn't fold.

Sundar made it 3-2 at the 7:40 mark when his centring pass banked in off the skate of a defenceman and past Stankowski, after a Dinos turnover inside the blueline.

Then Simard ripped an absolute cannon from the slot just 3:04 later, off another turnover, to tie the game at 3-3, and the Griffins had all kinds of momentum.

Despite MacEwan's big shift in momentum, the Dinos found a way to get some of it back late in the second period, and they cashed in on two power play goals by Stewart and Pakkala just 3:19 apart to take a 5-3 lead.

Jean Jr. made a great individual effort on a highlight reel goal to make it 5-4 just 2:21 into the third, but Stankowski made several game-saving stops in the third to preserve the victory.

MacEwan and Calgary will play Game 2 on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Downtown Community Arena.