The big news in Fredericton this past weekend was not UNB's continuing woes on the road; rather, the buzz is about two big home wins for STU that have vaulted them into a four-way tie for third place with UNB, UPEI and StFX.
On Friday STU was hosting high-flying UdeM, who entered the weekend in a second-place tie with UNB and an eight-place national ranking. However Chris Cook opened the scoring for the Tommies on a power play near the seven minute mark. Pierre Luc Laprise scored a breakaway power play goal at 12:23 to even the score for les Aigles Bleus, but the Tommies came right back 13 seconds later when a Richard Power point shot somehow eluded Moncton goaltender Jonathan Pelletier and caught the inside of the post. That was all the scoring in the first period, but the momentum definitely seemed to swing STU's way.
In the second period STU broke open the game with four goals, two by player of the game Robin Boucher, to UdeM's single tally. Eric LaFrance came into the nets for UdeM to start the third period, but again the Tommies outscored their visitors, this time two to one. The 8-3 final score and 38-43 shot count attests to a wide open entertaining game, but there was one black mark early in the third period. Moncton's hulking forward Daniel Hudgin pasted STU's Matt Seymour in the corner with a thunderous hit and earned a checking from behind major. Hudgin was tossed from the game and earned another game's suspension, while Seymour left some blood on the ice and suffered a concussion which saw him leave the game and be scratched from the next.
At the same time, the UNB Varsity Reds had traveled to Charlottetown for their match against the UPEI Panthers. Maybe trying to shake up their road trip woes, Gene Chiarello got a rare start in the UNB net. UNB opened the scoring on a Colin Sinclair goal, but then the Panther got three straight goals in the latter half of the period. Joel Ward had a power play and short handed marker and then Luc Chiasson had a highlight reel wrap-arounder. Reg Boucier was in the nets to start the second period for UNB and was doing well until 15:24 when Joel Ward completed his hat trick with his second power play goal of the night. The teams traded goals in the third period and UPEI held on for the 5-2 win.
On Saturday night UNB traveled to Moncton. Les Aigles Bleus, obviously rankled at their humbling the night before by STU, came out flying. After a clearing puck skipped off a UNB defenceman's skate, Laprise scored on a breakaway 59 seconds in on Moncton's first shot of the game. Seconds later Bourcier made a save on another Laprise rush, but got fooled by a Tomas Baluch shot at 1:31 that found the far post. Exactly a minute later UNB's Rob Hennigar seemed to stem the tide when he potted a rebound, but back came Sebastien Savage at 2:59 and suddenly UNB was down 3-1 and three minutes hadn't quite gone by yet. The early damage wasn't done. Patrick Gilbert scored on the power play at 6:31 and maybe sensing a rout Bourcier got the hook and Andy LeBlanc was sent to guard the posts. LeBlanc was solid and a few minutes later Bourcier was back in the nets, and didn't let in another goal for the rest of the night. In the second period, UNB's Dustin Friesen scored a power play goat at the 47 second mark and the V-Reds were back in the game. As exciting at the play was for the rest of the game, neither team could get another goal and Moncton held on for the 4-2 win.
So UNB is at the .500 mark and now has a five-game losing streak following their earlier five-game winning streak. Last year's silver medalists are obviously struggling. UNB players talk about having to work harder and get back to their former winning ways, but aren't showing it on the ice. Their goal tally is down, their shots are down and conversely opponents shots and goal scoring is up. In short, they were hot and now they're not.
Results were much better for their cross-campus ri