Griffins push No. 4 Huskies to the limit before falling in overtime

EDMONTON – The Griffins needed someone to shut the door.

With the visiting Trinity Western Spartans attempting an unlikely comeback from 4-1 down –  scoring two third-period goals to get within one at the Downtown Community Arena on Saturday – Vincent Scott stepped up and stopped their momentum cold.

Myles Gauld's hot shot deflected off a defender's shin pads right onto Scott's tape and he expertly ripped a sharp-angle blast past Raphael Audet with 3:32 left to give the Griffins a 5-3 lead.

"Massive," said Griffins head coach Zack Dailey, whose team eventually skated to a 6-3 win after Gauld hit an empty net. "It took the pressure off our group. They had a lot of the momentum, and I thought after a couple of those penalties we had to take a deep breath, and we had to get back to what we do well. I thought our group did that. 

"But it was a really big goal to take some pressure off our group there."

It's massive because the win itself is huge for the Griffins. MacEwan not only earned a weekend sweep over the Spartans for the second time this season, they now need just two more points to clinch a playoff spot.

"That was a big goal for our team," said Scott, who also added two assists in the contest. "Obviously, luckily, I'm the one that did it. It was great. They scored late there and we kind of stayed on the gas. We ended up getting one, so that was good."

With the win, MacEwan is now 9-8-3, moving two points ahead of idle Alberta (8-7-3) for second place in the West Division, which will come with a home quarter-final series. TWU falls to 3-16-1 and are all but out of the post-season, 12 points behind Alberta with only eight games left.

"It's huge, especially with U of A being ahead of us," said Gauld of the win. "We take a lot of pride with where we are in the standings and we want to finish ahead of them, so that was huge for us."

Gauld led the Griffins with two goals and an assist, while Kadyn Chabot continued his assault on the record books by extending his new program single season goals record to 15 with two tallies.

Chabot opened the scoring for MacEwan 6:19 into the contest when he took a nifty behind-the-back pass from Sam Simard and wired it past Audet.

Then he went coast to coast 1:14 into the second and put MacEwan up 2-0 with a high blocker snipe.

"It looks easy for him," said Dailey. "Today, especially that second goal – great poise, great shot. Again, this is because of his work ethic. This isn't because he's cheating the game or taking liberties he shouldn't. He's playing the correct way, he's blocking shots and he's on the penalty kill.

"He's getting rewarded for his hard work, so I'm really happy to see it. He's playing the right way and he's helping us win more games."

Chabot further filled the stats sheet with 14 minutes in penalties after being tossed out on  a misconduct midway through the third. But not before he moved to within a goal of the Canada West lead and within a point of Ethan Strang's single season program record of 27 set in 2023-24.

After Mikhailo Simchuk scored his first of three goals for the Spartans at 5:26 of the second, Caden Cabana walked in very similarly to Chabot's second goal and went bar down high blocker, too, restoring MacEwan's two-goal advantage.

Gauld made it 4-1 before the second was out, jamming a puck in out of a scramble in front for what would prove to be the game-winner.

"Just jamming away," he explained. "The goalie saved the first one and I got a backhand on it and got lucky. It was good."

Simchuk, who was flying all night, beat Eric Ward twice in the third period to complete a hat-trick and make things interesting, but Dailey liked the resolve of his group.

"Third period had some ups and downs, but what I like is when the game got tight, instead of folding, we continued to push and we continued to move forward and found a way to win a hockey game," he said. "That's really good experience for our group that even in tight games we can't freeze up, we've got to keep playing. We've got to trust and believe in our abilities, and I thought we did that tonight."

And finally, for the quirky stat of the night, Ward added two assists to the 17 saves he made on the evening – his blocker stop sending Chabot on his way to the second goal, and his late save leading to Gauld's empty-netter.

"That is wild," said Dailey. "When they announced that, I was like 'what?' Not only is he making saves, he's helping us produce goals, too, which is a new one. Awesome job by him. 

"I liked our goaltending all weekend, especially since these guys have been off for a month a bit here. For the first games back, I was happy with the effort."

The Griffins will next host the Chinese National Team on Wednesday (7 p.m., Downtown Community Arena) in exhibition action on their bye week.