The Men’s Hockey team hit the ice hot and heavy in the second game of the best-of-three OUA East semi-finals, clearly focused on not returning to Kingston without a victory in hand.
Completing their sweep against the Ottawa Gee-Gees, the Gaels delivered a 7-3 blowout game on Feb. 28 in Ottawa, Ont.
Just under nine minutes into the first period, Daniel Michaud, ArtSci ’27, put the puck on a platter for Ian Lemieux, ArtSci ’27, who made no mistake swiftly sliding the puck past the Gee-Gees’ goaltender.
Even with an early lead, the team refused to take their foot off the gas. Early in the second period, the Gaels stuck twice, with Holden Katzalay, CompSci ’25, capitalizing on a power play and Derek Hamilton, ArtSci ’27, adding another.
Ten minutes later, Nolan Hutcheson, ArtSci ’25, scored an unassisted goal, marking four unanswered goals for the Gaels, taking a commanding 4-0 lead over the Gee-Gees.
Ottawa responded, scoring two even-strength goals before the end of the second period.
However, the third period showed the Gaels maintaining form, trading goals on the Gee-Gees’ powerplay as Ante Zlomislic, Sci ’28, found the net just before the Gee-Gees tallied their third of the game.
The Gaels added two more goals en route to a 7-3 victory. Hutcheson notched his second of the game on the power play, with Katzalay adding his second on an empty net goal.
Goalie Christian Purboo, ArtSci ’25, had a solid game in the net for the Gaels, stopping 22 of 25 shots to send the Gaels to the OUA East finals, where they’ll play the Concordia Stingers in another best-of-three series with a spot in the OUA Championship on the line.
The Gaels dropped the first game in the series on Mar. 5 by a score of 1-2. After leading the Stingers throughout the first two periods, the Stingers mounted a comeback, taking a 1-0 lead in the series and putting the Gaels in elimination territory.
Hutcheson scored the lone goal for the Gaels in the first period, and Purboo played a phenomenal game, stopping 35 of 37 shots.
The Gaels split the regular season series against the Stingers, beating Concordia 2-1 on Oct. 4 and losing 2-5 on Jan. 19 when both their captain, Jack Duff, ArtSci ’25, and leading goal scorer Hutcheson were absent representing Team Canada at the FISU games.
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