OTTAWA – The Carleton Ravens scored three first period goals en route to a 5-3 victory to give the Ryerson Rams men's hockey team their first regulation loss of the 2016-17 season Friday night.
BOXSCORE
With the victory, the Ravens improved to a game above .500 with a 4-3 record, while the Rams received their second straight loss to move to 4-1-1 through their first six games.
Rams' sophomore goaltender Taylor Dupuis suited up between the pipes for his first start of the season and gave the Rams every chance to win with his start Friday night.
His counterpart, Ravens' Francois Brassard, made a number of key saves in the victory as well and finished the game with 22 saves for his 4th win of the year.
The Rams couldn't have asked for a better start Friday. Captain Michael Fine sent a well-placed wrist shot over the shoulder of Brassard to give the Rams a 1-0 lead just 45 seconds into the opening period.
An early deficit didn't seem to fluster a composed Ravens lineup, however. A healthy Brett Welychka, in his first game back from injury, beat Dupuis with a slap-shot from the point at 17:02 to tie the game at one and then snuck in back-door for his second of the night ten minutes later. Adam Chapman then contributed with a glorious goal of his own and sent the Ravens into the first intermission with a controlling 3-1 lead.
Dupuis found his groove in the second and responded with a series of gorgeous glove saves to ignite the Rams. Landon Schiller put his hands on display and embarrassed a Ravens defender before dishing the puck over to Vince Figliomeni for an open cage goal. Figliomeni's third of the season cut the Ravens' lead to one and swung the momentum back in the Rams' favour.
The Ravens then came out for the third with a determined mentality and restored the two-goal lead once again. Welychka had his hand in the cookie jar again for the Ravens, but this time with an assist after finding Michael McNamee back-door on a 2-on-1 to put the Ravens up 4-2.
The Rams' hard work finally paid off late in the third and caused the Ravens to take two penalties in the same shift. With four minutes remaining in the third, Rams' Jamie Lewis beat Brassard on the 5-on-3 advantage and made it a 4-3 game.
That was as close as the Rams would get, however, as the Ravens potted an empty net goal to cruise to a 5-3 victory over the Rams in Ottawa Friday night.
The Rams will look to rebound in search of their fifth win of the season Saturday night as they travel to Kingston to take on the RMC Paladins at 7:00 p.m. That game will be streamed live to OUA.tv.
