In a game that saw over 240 penalty minutes handed out, the Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team suffered a 3-2 shootout loss to the No. 10 nationally ranked Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes Dec. 3 at the Ice House.
Coming off a 7-2 loss to the Concordia Stingers the previous night, the Ravens were looking to prove the blowout was just a fluke.
“My message to the team after the loss was to have a better effort and to stick together,” said Ravens head coach Marty Johnston. “I feel they did that, but at the same time we’ve got a long way to go.”
Having defeated UQTR by a score of 7-1 in October, both teams started the game in a very physical manner. The Ravens ran into penalty trouble early on, having five minors called against them in the first period.
Carleton killed off every UQTR man advantage, largely due to the spectacular play of goaltender Matthew Dopud. Dopud had eight saves through the first 15 minutes, including a remarkable sprawling stick save to keep the visiting Patriotes off the scoreboard.
Five minutes into the second period, Ravens captain Brandon Maclean beat UQTR goaltender Guillaume Nadeau with a quick snapshot to give Carleton their first goal of the game.
After trading numerous scoring chances, physical tensions soon boiled over between both teams.
Ravens forward Jordan Deagle was speared with a stick in front of the Carleton bench, resulting in a 10-player line-brawl. Players from both teams promptly paired off to fight, with the referees desperately trying to control the situation.
The game was delayed for close to 30 minutes as the officials struggled to hand out penalties to those involved. The referees dealt a total of 167 penalty minutes between the two teams for the altercation.
This isn’t the first time the two teams have dropped the gloves. Last season, the Ravens collected 78 penalty minutes after a late brawl with the Patriotes, and a total of six misconducts were handed out between the two teams. Later that month, the Patriotes eliminated the Ravens in the second round of the Ontario University Athletics playoffs.
Both the Ravens’ and Patriotes’ benches were left severely shorthanded after the Dec. 3 altercations. After the scrum, Johnston said the message on his bench was that cooler heads would prevail.
“We were hoping the guys would keep their composure going into the third,” Johnston said. “They did that for the most part, but then some undisciplined penalties definitely cost us.”
On a five-minute power play, forward Andrew Self gave the Ravens a 2-0 lead 35 seconds into the third period, banking home a rebound close to the net. But this seemed to spark the Patriotes, who began pressuring the Ravens almost instantly.
With a two-man advantage, Charles Bety deflected a cross-crease pass to pull UQTR within one. Then, with just under three minutes left in the third, Pierre-Luc Lessard beat Dopud in tight off a Raven turnover to tie the game.
“At that point . . . we couldn’t sit back, and [we] needed to go out and try and get one,” MacLean said. “We pushed back and had some chances, but we should have put the game away before that.”
Overtime solved nothing, with both goaltenders making key saves.
In the shootout, UQTR netminder Nadeau stopped all three Ravens shooters. Felix Petit managed to score for UQTR, tucking a nifty backhand between Dopud’s legs to escape with the comeback victory.
“We came out ready to go after losing to Concordia the other night,” MacLean said. “Towards the end of the second, we had a lot of opportunities to put the game away. We failed to do that, and they eventually kept building momentum off of it.”
The Ravens head into the holiday break with a modest 9-5-2 record. They return to action Jan. 4 at home, hosting the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.
