Chabot breaks goals record as Griffins show off depth with seven different scorers in big win over Spartans

EDMONTON — The MacEwan Griffins started off 2026 with a bang.

Seven different goal scorers, six players with multi-point efforts, and all four lines finding ways to contribute.

And, to top it all off, forward Kadyn Chabot is now the program's single-season goal scoring record holder in their Canada West era after a 7-4 victory over the Trinity Western Spartans on Friday night at the Downtown Community Arena.

"We had a lot of great efforts tonight from our guys (offensively)," said Griffins head coach Zack Dailey.

"If we're going to be a successful team, we can't just have one line going, we need all four lines contributing and creating energy within our group, and we had that throughout our lineup tonight."

Chabot and defenceman Logan Dowhaniuk led the Griffins offensive explosion with a goal and two assists each, while Carter Chorney, Vincent Scott, Ethan Sundar, Dwayne Jean Jr., Sam Simard all scored for the Griffins.

Chorney, Jean Jr., Simard and Brody Tallman (two assists) all recorded two points in the win as MacEwan improved to 8-8-3 record and are tied with the Alberta Golden Bears (8-7-3) for second in the conference's west division, while their rivals have a game in hand.

They're also now 12 points ahead of Trinity Western (3-15-1) for the final playoff spot in the West Division with nine games left for both teams.

Christian Lowe scored twice for TWU, while Ricards Landmanis and Aiden Knutson rounded out the scoring for the Spartans.

The Griffins didn't waste any time finding the back of the net. Chorney's fourth goal of the season gave MacEwan a 1-0 lead on their first shot of the game, just 1:06 into the contest.

After Landmanis tied it at 1-1, Scott and Chabot's goals just 29 seconds apart gave MacEwan a 3-1 lead when the first period wrapped up.

Chabot's record-breaking 13th goal at the 13:40 mark of the opening period broke Ethan Strang's previous mark of 12, set in 2023-24. Chabot took a drop pass from Simard who was driving the net and blasted a shot past TWU goaltender Leon Sommer.

"It feels good. I used to play with Stranger, and it's nice to be able to pass him now," said Chabot.

"I had probably the same amount of chances last year, but this year, they're just going in. I'm not going to complain, I'll take them any way."

The Griffins continued to pour it on, as Sundar, Jean Jr. and Simard's markers in a 1:23 span gave the Griffins a 6-1 lead just under six minutes into the middle frame.

But then MacEwan started to stray away from their game a little bit. 

"I thought we did a lot of things correctly, and then at times we got away from the game plan and how we want to play," said Dailey.

"Sometimes when we're up 6-1 like we were it's tough to stick to the system, you just want to create offence, and that's something we need to work on."

Despite Lowe's two goals 3:03 apart in the second period to cut the lead to 6-3, the Griffins were still in full control, and the way the Griffins scored their goals, would make any coach happy.

There were some highlight-reel goals, but three of them were scored from perfect tip-ins with all kinds of traffic in front of Sommer and Raphael Audet, who combined to face 45 shots in the loss.

"That's been our focus the past couple weeks identifying where our offence needs to come from and our o-zone play was an area we needed to work on, specifically support and net front play, and I thought we did a much better job getting to the net, and our D did a good job getting pucks through," said Dailey.

"That's what scoring goals is – the hard-working plays, getting to the dirty areas, and I was happy to see our guys getting rewarded after we've stressed that the last few weeks."

Zac Onyskiw made 27 saves for his fifth win of the season, and despite allowing four goals, he made several outstanding stops to keep the Spartans from mounting a comeback.

"I played with him in Spruce (Grove), and he's always there to bail you out. In that third period, he made a couple big saves that I didn't even know he could pull off like that," said Chabot 

"He played amazing, and he gives us a lot of confidence to go to battle for him when he makes saves like that."

Dailey was certainly happy with a lot of facets within their game in their first game back from the Christmas break, but he wants to see his team clean up some areas of their game — especially on the defensive side of the puck.

"We've identified that we want to be a team that plays the same way whether we're up five or down five, we have to play the right way. At times we were quite good, but we have some stuff we have to work on," said Dailey.

"A lot of the situations we were in are preventable from our group  I don't think we've given up that many rush chances in a game, like we did tonight, and that's something we need to clean up and correct."

Dailey has praised Chabot with his strong 200-foot game this season, and he was happy to see the veteran forward set a new program record.

"He's been great. He's so important to our group," said Dailey.

"On the power play or on the penalty kill, and he's finding ways to score big goals for us. He's leading the way by bringing a strong effort every night."

MacEwan will wrap up their weekend series with TWU on Saturday (3 p.m., Downtown Community Arena, Canada West TV).