VANCOUVER – In a wild affair that saw multiple momentum swings with 11 total goals, the Calgary Dinos had the last laugh, scoring five times in the final period to earn a 7-4 win over the UBC Thunderbirds Saturday afternoon at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
After the Dinos (10-5-1) staked out a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes, the T-Birds (11-2-1) stormed back scoring four in a row to take a two goal lead of their own heading to the final period.
But in a reversal of fortunes, it was the T-Birds who found themselves chasing all of a sudden as Calgary scored five unanswered en route to the weekend split, handing UBC their first loss on home ice all season.
"You're not going to win every game and you're not going to go through a season without facing adversity," said UBC Head Coach Sven Butenschon whose team's five game win streak was snapped. "Our league is good, every team competes hard, all these guys play for pride. They've been playing at a high level, nothing's going to be given to us. Just because we had a good first half and just because we won some games before Christmas doesn't mean anything. We'll take the split, learn from our mistakes and then we got to grow as a group and learn."
UBC goaltender Rylan Toth entered Saturday on a three game shutout streak, having tied the Canada West record in the process. But his goalless streak ended at 227:49, just 54 seconds after puck drop, as Jake Gricius jammed home a rebound off a Josh Rieger wraparound attempt.
The Dinos doubled their lead late in the period when Jaeger White scored on the power play, Calgary's first man advantage goal of the weekend on 10 tries.
UBC turned the tide in the second period, led by a pair of goals from captain Tyler Sandhu who got the ball rolling with a snipe upstairs past Carl Stankowski from in tight for his sixth of the season at the 10:53 mark.
?? MHKY | Tyler Sandhu's 2nd of the game with assists to Douglas, Atkinson, and the @UBCMHKY PK #GoBirdsGo pic.twitter.com/okv1CyF2DC
— UBC Thunderbirds (@ubctbirds) January 22, 2022
74 seconds later, Scott Atkinson tied the game as he snapped in his fourth from the slot off a nice feed from Jonathan Smart.
Cyle McNabb scored his sixth to give the 'Birds their first lead of the game and Sandhu doubled the lead with 39 seconds left in the period, finishing a 2-on-0 rush with Chris Douglas after just stepping out of the penalty box.
Despite the second period explosion, the 'Birds were unable to maintain their hold in the final frame.
Tyson Upper got the Dinos within one just 4:09 in with his fourth of the season and Arjun Atwal got the visitors even at 10:47 with his third.
Gricius then scored his second of the game with what turned out to be the winner with just under four minutes to play.
The floodgates were then opened as Connor Gutenberg scored an insurance marker just 52 seconds later while Upper added one into the empty net for his second of the afternoon.
"In the second period we found our scoring touch and scored some beautiful goals and the finesse part of our game was quite good actually for 60 minutes," added Butenschon. "Passes were sharp, support was good, we generated some good scoring chances. But it was kind of the opposite of what we saw last night where we dug in and we played incredibly hard away from the puck, blocking shots. We didn't have that tonight."
One big factor Saturday, in multiple ways, was the loss of T-Bird defenceman Matt Leduc early in the second after he became the target of a massive hit along the end boards that saw Josh Maser receive a five minute boarding major. Not only was Leduc lost for the rest of the game, but UBC was unable to score on the ensuing power play.
"Losing Leduc, a big pillar there, when you have a 4-2 lead, I think that hurt us," added Butenschon. "We just got a bit of medicine from a hard working team that plays playoff type hockey every night. They grind and grind and grind and they hope to score some goals without some of their top players and that's what they did in the third period."
Despite the loss, the T-Birds are guaranteed to head into next week at least tied for first overall, pending the outcome of Saturday night's Alberta-Saskatchewan matchup.
The Dinos moved into a tie with the Golden Bears for second in the conference, just two points back of UBC although the T-Birds and Alberta both have two games in hand.
UBC heads on the road next weekend to face the Regina Cougars, the first of four straight games away from home as the 'Birds look to get closer to securing a home playoff berth.
Dinos score five unanswered to end T-Birds' home unbeaten streak - UBC Thunderbirds
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