In their first match of their quarterfinal series against the Ottawa Gee-Gees, Queen's Men's Hockey secured a 4-3 victory.
"I was a little nervous of how we were going to come out and play playoff hockey because the intensity is a lot different than the regular season and today proved that we have a veteran group," Head Coach Brett Gibson remarked.
Ottawa secured the first goal of the match and the sole goal of the first period eleven minutes into play. The Gee-Gees followed it up with another goal off of a feed from behind the net in the second.
The Gaels found their way onto the scoreboard during a power play 9:14 into the second period, when Holden Katzalay (Computing) fired the puck into the net, assisted by Cameron Tolnai (Business) and Owen Lalonde (Geography/French).
Queen's evened the score with another at 14:42 from Ethan Larmand (Arts & Science) assisted by Liam Tanner (Kinesiology and Health Studies) and Lucas Peric (Economics).
Despite the Gee-Gees out shooting the Gaels in the second period, Christian Purboo (Economics) put up stellar saves through the end of the second half to maintain the tie heading into the third period.
In the third, it was the Gaels' turn to develop a lead. A goal from Daniel Michaud (Arts & Science) assisted by Derek Hamilton (Arts & Science) in the fifth minute brought Queen's into the front.
"The third goal of the game was Queen's Men's Hockey. Put a puck deep, get it, throw it out front, bang out a rebound. When you've got the momentum, it just gets us rolling," Gibson commented.
Immediately after, Tolnai secured another one for Queen's off a pass from Nolan Hutcheson (Health Studies).
The Gee-Gees fought to stage a comeback and added one of their own during the third but were unable to take down the Gaels' momentum.
With the win, the Gaels lead the Gee-Gees 1-0 in their best of three series and head to Ottawa this weekend.
"They're a really good team in their home rink and they're not going to want to roll over," Gibson said. "We're going to have to play a really simple game but a faster game. Again, it's just about raising that level another ten percent next game."
Queen's Men's Hockey continues quarterfinal action in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 28, at 7pm. Fans can tune in on oua.tv.
