Bisons Draw, Lose to Huskies
Regan Sarmatiuk Staff
Photo by David Lipnowski.
The Bison men’s hockey team took their first point off of the Saskatchewan Huskies in conference play this year in a 4-4 tie on Friday, Feb. 3, before falling 4-1 in a Saturday rematch that was a bit of a wild affair, overshadowed by some heavy-handed officiating and a serious injury to Bison forward Chris Falloon.
The first period of Saturday’s game was fast-paced and entertaining, minus the ugly knee-on-knee hit that the Huskies’ Dean Serdachny laid on Falloon, who was helped off the ice and did not return for the remainder of the game. Serdachny received a five-minute kneeing penalty and a game misconduct. At publication time, Falloon’s status was still unclear, but Bison head coach Mike Sirant indicated after the game that “It looks like he’s going to be out for a while.”
The Huskies would get on the scoreboard first with a Trent Adamus powerplay goal seven minutes into the second period, but the herd would tie the game on the powerplay at 15:01, when Paul Deniset put the puck past Huskie netminder Jeff Harvey after taking a nice feed from linemate Kevin Saurette.
Less than a minute later, the game took a turn for the worse for the Bisons when Saurette cruised through the crease and knocked over Harvey, who stayed down and was attended to briefly by a trainer before getting up to finish the game. While a two-minute goaltender interference call would have been expected, Saurette was assessed a five-minute charging penalty and a game misconduct. The Huskies capitalized on a powerplay opportunity only two minutes later when Dean Beuker, the Canada West conference’s leading scorer, notched the go-ahead goal.
On top of Saurette’s game misconduct, twelve minor penalties were handed out in the second period, six to Manitoba and six to Saskatchewan, including two unsportsmanlike conduct calls — one to each team.
In the third period, the Huskies received an even-strength goal from Alekcei McAvoy and a powerplay goal from Brett Dickie to bring the score to 4-1, where it would stay for the remainder of the evening.
After the game, Bison head coach Mike Sirant commented on the officiating in no uncertain terms.
“I thought we had a great hockey game going — I thought it was a great, exciting game — and all of a sudden [the referee] interfered with the game. He started making all the wrong calls . . . and he took the game away from the players . . . he tried to play too much of a dominant role,” said Sirant.
Officiating aside, Sirant still said that while his team put in a good effort and had the will to win, the difference in the game was that the Bisons gave up three power-play goals on the night. Heading into the weekend, the herd had the top penalty kill in the Canada West at 88.9 per cent.
“Instead of thinking defence where we have been all year, we started thinking too much offensively . . . and it cost us the first and second goal, and that was the difference in the hockey game,” said Sirant.
In Friday night’s game, Saurette opened the scoring at 3:35 of the first period before the Huskies scored four unanswered goals.
The Bisons’ Warren McCutcheon scored midway through the second on the powerplay, and then Falloon added an even-strength goal.
Bison rookie Richard Wood scored the game-tying goal seven minutes into the third period, and the game ended in a 4-4 draw after overtime solved nothing.
Next,the Bisons will face the Regina Cougars in a two-game home series at the Max Bell Centre on Feb. 10 and 11 that will have significant playoff implications. The Bisons are currently ahead of the Cougars, whom they will face in the first round of the playoffs, by three points in their division, but the Cougars have two games in hand, and home-ice advantage has yet to be decided. Game time is 7 p.m. both nights.
