February 19, 2017

Redmen sweep quarter-final series to send Voyageurs on a portage

MONTREAL -- Team captain Patrick Delisle-Houde and rookie Guillaume Gauthier each tallied twice as the McGill men's hockey team cruised to a 7-2 victory over Laurentian University at McConnell Arena, Saturday.

McGill

Laurentian

Final

McGill

Laurentian

MONTREAL -- Team captain Patrick Delisle-Houde and rookie Guillaume Gauthier each tallied twice as the McGill men's hockey team cruised to a 7-2 victory over Laurentian University at McConnell Arena, Saturday. The result, combined with a 2-1 overtime road win last Wednesday, handed the Voyageurs a sweep in the OUA East best-of-three quarter-final and sent them on a portage back to Sudbury. It also extended the Redmen win streak to five, including two in post-season play.

McGill, the No.3 ranked team in the nation, will host Game 1 of their divisional semifinal series on Wednesday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. against the winner of the UQTR-Carleton series, which is deadlocked at 1-1 and will be decided in Ottawa on Sunday evening.

The seven-goal outburst was the most for McGill in a playoff game since a 9-2 decision over Concordia on Feb. 17, 1916.

"It's always fun to play at home and easier to play here because we don't have to deal with travel," said Delisle-Houde, a master's student in kinesiology and physical education, who was attempting to explain why Game 2 was so different from the 2-1 opener in Sudbury. "It's our home ice, we're more familiar with our pre-game routine in our rink and in front of our fans, friends and family. Laurentain works pretty hard and can be a tough team to play against, so we didn't expect to crush them. But we knew that we had to work them hard and put the puck in behind their D. That's what we did and when you do the right things, usually good things happen."

Delisle-Houde and Gautheir traded goals back-and-forth around a vaoyageur strike from Graham Yeo as McGill constructed a 4-1 lead after two periods, then outscored the Voyageurs 3-1 in a wild final six minutes of the game.

Gauthier, who scored just six times in 27 regular season games, has gotten hot in the post-season with three markers in two contests. one shy of the league lead.

In the final period, sophomore Jerome Verrier made it 5-1 on the power-play at 14:06 and 51 seconds later, senior Jan Kaminsky added an empty-netter, whlile McGill was shorthanded, to give the Redmen a five-goal cushion. Kaminsky's goal was the 600th playoff goal for McGill in school history...

But the Dylan Fitze replied for the Voyageurs 27 seconds after that and then it was McGill's turn, 33 seconds later, when Simon Tardif-Richard tallied the final marker. When the dust cleared, four goals were scored in two minutes and 51 seconds.

McGill, which had a 31-27 edge in shots, went 1-for-8 on the power-play, while their visitors went 2-for-4.

Veteran Redmen netminder Jacob Gervais-Chouinard, who didn't play in the series opener, merited the start between the pipes and kicked aside 19 of 21 shots for his seventh consecutive victory. It was the 70th career win for the economics senior, who owns a 70-32 lifetime record in 112 contests overall, including a 14-9 mark in post-season play.

Laurentian's Joel Vienneau kicked out 30 of 36 shots in a losing cause.

The victory was McGill's seventh consecutive over Laurentian, since their last loss, a 5-2 decision at McConnell Arena on Oct. 18, 2014. The Redmen now own an 18-5-2 lifetime record in 25 meetings overall with the Voyageurs.

REDMEN RAP: The Redmen own an 88-84 record in 172 playoff games, outscoring opponents 601-570 since their first post-season encounter more than a century ago, in 1910... McGill could play either UQTR or Carleton in the next round. Their record against Carleton was 2-1, losing a preseason road game 4-3 in an overtime shootout, followed by 4-3 and 2-1 regular season wins on home ice... . The Redmen were 3-1 against the Pats, winning 6-2 and 2-1 in the preseason, followed by a 3-1 loss and a 6-5 win in regular season play.