Gee-Gees beat Nipissing, Laurentian to stay undefeated in regulation
After a two-win weekend at home against Queen’s and RMC, the men’s hockey team took to the road for a two-game trip to Northern Ontario, taking on the Nipissing Lakers on Friday, Nov. 9, and the Laurentian Voyageurs on Saturday, Nov. 10.
The game against Nipissing started off well. Rookie Gee-Gee Yvan Mongo opened up the scoring right out of the gate on passes from Eric Locke and Jean-François Plante to give the Gees a 1-0 lead in the first minute.
Five minutes later, Kevin Domingue would widen the U of O’s lead, one-timing a Cody Drover pass to beat Lakers goalie Domenic Graham, giving the Gees a 2-0 lead on the power-play.
However, the Gees’ struggles to stay out of the penalty box would come back to bite them. Nipissing’s Danny Desrochers would take advantage of a Jacob Hanlon holding penalty to put the Lakers on the board, while Drake Lindsey tied the game at two goals apiece, making good of a tripping call against Gee-Gee defencemen Jacob Sweeney.
The period would end at 2-2 with the Gees outshooting Nipissing 15-12.
In the second, Gee-Gees goaltender Anthony Brodeur was tested a single time, while his team out-skated and out-shot Nipissing 14-1 in front of the small crowd at North Bay’s Memorial Gardens arena.
In spite of their utter domination of the Lakers, the Gees would fail to beat Graham, meaning the score stayed tied at 2-2 after two.
In the final frame, the Lakers would take the lead, thanks to a Gael Lubwele power-play goal, which was a real punch in the gut for the Gees.
However, they would gain back the lost momentum with five minutes left, scoring back-to-back goals in less than 20 seconds, thanks to Plante and Antoine Pouliot, to give them a 4-3 lead.
Brodeur would stop 14 of 17 shots, while Graham would stop 38 of 42 shots in a shelling from the visiting squad’s offence.
Gees take on the Voyageurs
In the next game versus Laurentian, the Gees called upon goaltender Graham Hunt.
Laurentian scored first, with Nicolas Dionne putting one past Hunt eight minutes into the game. But the Gee-Gees answered less than five minutes later when Hanlon found the back of the net on passes from Pouliot and Quinn O’Brien.
Two minutes later, the Garnet and Grey took the lead off a Brendan Jacome rocket. However, Laurentian would answer with two goals of their own, thanks to lackluster play from the U of O defense. At the end of one, the Gees trailed the Voyageurs, 3-2.
In the second, Laurentian’s Gavin Apperson would score early, giving his team a two-goal lead, but that lead would be short-lived.
Gee-Gees defenceman Michael Poirer would clap one on the power-play to hack the Voyageurs’ lead in two, while Medric Mercier scored with a second left in the period to tie up the game at 4-4.
The third saw the Gees allow another early score to give Laurentian a one-goal lead. But once again, they answered. Drover tied the game with eight minutes left, and Domingue sniped a power-play goal for the game-winner with about 1:40 left in the game. The Gees would take it 6-5.
Hunt halted 16 of 21 shots, while Laurentian’s Michael Giugovaz stopped 40 of 46 shots in another dominant performance for the boys from the capital.
The Gee-Gees will be back in Ottawa on Friday, Nov. 16, for the Colonel By Classic at the TD Place arena, 7:30 p.m. You can find more information here.
