V-Reds reach 20-win plateau
AUS hockey | UNB gets a bye to semifinal round
The UNB Varsity Reds made it six consecutive 20-victory seasons with a win over Universite de Moncton Aigles Bleu Saturday night at the Aitken University Centre, on the final day of regular season play in the Atlantic University Sport men's hockey conference.
The loss places Moncton in third spot, narrowly missing a first-round bye .
The Aigles Bleus will now face St. Francis Xavier X-Men in the opening round of the playoffs, with the bestof-three series beginning Thursday in Moncton. UdeM, which finished 18-9-1 for 37 points, pairs off against sixth place finishing St. FX (10-14-4-24) in one quarter-final, while fourth place University of Prince Edward Island Panthers (18-10-0-36) will take on fifth place Acadia (16-10-2-36) in the other best-of three opening Friday. UNB and second place Saint Mary's Huskies get first-round byes.
The V-Reds would play the lowestranked survivor in one best-of-five semifinal, with the Huskies meeting the other quarter-final winner.
Saturday, Rookie forward Tyler Carroll led the V-Reds with a pair of goals while, Antoine Houde-Caron and Dion Campbell chipped in one apiece in front of 3,670 fans.
Dan LaCosta earned the win in the crease with a 24 save performance, filling in for starter Travis Fullerton, who had a night off.
The loss in net went to P-A Marion, who turned aside 32 of 36 shots.
Alex Quesnel had the lone goal for Moncton.
'It's a great win, to finish strong and get confidence going into the playoffs, and there's no better team to win it against,' said Carroll.
'It's not hard to get up to play any game here, going from a 68 game schedule to a (28), every weekend is what you play for.' Carroll got UNB on the board midway through the opening frame when he deflected a point shot from defenceman Ben Wright past Marion at 11:24.
The game's first star potted his second of the period with just over a minute remaining on the clock when he collected a loose puck in front of the net and swept a backhand into the open cage for a 2-0 UNB lead.
Moncton got on the board with 22 seconds left in the period, as Quesnel snuck a rebound past LaCosta to make it a 2-1 game heading into the second period.
UNB reinstated a two-goal lead at 16:24 of the second on a nice two-onone rush courtesy of Stefan Salituro and Houde-Caron.
Salituro broke into the Blue Eagles zone on his strong side, and out-waited the Moncton defender before sliding a crisp pass across to the streaking Houde-Caron for a tap in and a 3-1 UNB lead.
That was the only marker of the second period.
Campbell made it 4-1 UNB thanks to a solid effort from rookie forward Geordie Wudrick.
Wudrick circled the Moncton zone, and drew in the Aigles Bleus defence before sending a backhand pass out front to Campbell, who dropped to one knee as he one-timed a low shot past Marion at 8:24.
Moncton head coach Serge Bourgeois said it would've been nice to earn a bye for the sake of rest, but the team has already started to focus on their first-round match up.
'A couple of our key guys are tired, we're banged up, a few injuries we're working on. A break would've been nice, but we've already started to prepare for X. We don't know if it will be Wednesday or not, but we'll be ready,' he said.
Prior to the puck drop, forwards Chris Culligan and Jordan Clendenning, and defenseman Bretton Stamler received the Ross 'Punch' Walker Memorial Merit Award. Defenceman Ben Wright received the Michael Cavanagh Memorial Merit Award.
In the other games on the final day of the AUS regular season Saturday, the Panthers blanked the St. Thomas Tommies 5-0, the Huskies shut out the Acadia Axemen 2-0, and StFX edged Dalhousie Tigers 5-4. The Tommies finish in the league cellar for the fourth consecutive season with a 5-14-5 mark for 15 points.
Acadia's Andrew Clark won the league scoring race with 15 goals and 24 assists for 39 points in 28 games, one better than second place Matt Carter of UPEI, who finished with 18 goals and 28 assists for 38 points.
UNB captain Kyle Bailey completed his fifth and final regular season with the V-Reds as the team's top scorer, fourth overall, with 16 goals and 17 assists for 33 points in 27 games. Chris Owens of the Axemen was the league's top-scoring defenceman, with 10 goals and 19 assists for 29 points. The next four top scorers were all Fredericton-based: Jonathan Harty of the V-Reds was second with seven goals and 20 assists for 27 points, Luke Gallant of the V-Reds third with five goals and 21 assists for 26 points, rookie blueliner Felix Poulin of the St. Thomas Tommies fourth overall with three goals and 17 assists for 20 points, and veteran Bretton Stamler of UNB tied for fourth with eight goals and 12 assists for 20 points as well.
The Varsity Reds goaltending tandem of Travis Fullerton and Dan LaCosta were 1-2 statistically in the Conference, Fullerton with a 1.67 goals against, an 11-1 record and a .909 save percentage. LaCosta was next in line with a 2.49 goals against. Tommies' goaltender Charles Lavigne finished with a 3.92 goals against and a 4-20 record and an .888 save percentage. Fullerton shared the league lead in shutouts with rookies Anthony Peters of the Saint Mary's Huskies and Evan Mosher of the Acadia Axemen, each with two.