REDS Triumph, Milestone Win For MacDougall
(MONCTON, NB) A two-point night from team captain Jason Willms (Kitchener, ON) led the UNB REDS to a dominant 7-0 road victory over the Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus on Tuesday night at the J.-Louis-Lévesque Arena.
Willms had a goal and an assist while Griffen Outhouse (Williams Lake, BC) made 14 saves for his fourth shutout of the season.
"I thought it was a pretty complete effort from us tonight," said Willms. "Griffen made some timely saves for us in net tonight, and I think we got off to a good start establishing our forecheck early. We're a good team when we score that first goal, and I think we just built off that first one. Luckily, that energy took us to 60 minutes tonight."
The win was the 489th regular season victory for REDS' head coach Gardiner MacDougall, making him the all-time winningest coach (regular season/conference play) in U SPORTS history. He passes former University of Saskatchewan coach Dave Adolph, who won 488 regular season games with the Huskies during his career.
Cole MacKay (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) opened the scoring for the REDS at 6:43 of the first period. MacKay was able to tip home a point shot from Colton Kammerer (Brooklin, ON), beating Aigles Bleus goaltender Olivier Adam (Drummondville, QC), giving UNB the early lead, 1-0.
Willms added to the UNB lead late in the first period on the powerplay. He was able to walk out in front and fire a shot past the glove of Adam, making it 2-0 to end the period.
"I came down the wing with the puck and saw the defenceman was trying to block the shot," said Willms. "I kind of just pulled it into the middle. Luckily enough, it was able to go in."
The REDS continued their trend of strong second periods, scoring three goals in the middle frame, which allowed them to jump out to a commanding 5-0 lead.
"The second period has been a big period for us this season," said Willms. "I think making smart changes and making our plays when we have a chance and distributing the puck when the plays are not there has been the key to our success so far in those second periods."
Michael Pitizian (Mississauga, ON) scored just two minutes into the second period, redirecting a shot from Kale McCallum (Rothesay, NB) to push the UNB lead, to 3-0.
Then Isaac Nurse (Hamilton, ON) and Macauley Carson (Midhurst, ON) scored goals just 11 seconds apart to make it 5-0 UNB.
Cody Morgan (Maple, ON) netted two powerplay goals late in the third period to put UNB up 7-0 to close out the game.
With the win, UNB moves to 29-0-0-0 (W-L-OTL-SOL) and will wrap up regular-season play on Saturday when they face the UPEI Panthers at home. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00pm.
"We want to play a complete 60 minutes," said Willms. "It's our last game of the regular season, and we're at home, so we want to get out to a great start as we always do and not waste a second out there Saturday night."
Moncton falls to 15-10-3-0 and will travel to Antigonish on Wednesday to face the STFX X-Men at 4:00pm. That game was originally scheduled for last weekend but was postponed due to inclement weather and bad road conditions.
RECAP AND PHOTOS: Evan Richtsfeld/UNB Athletics