(FREDERICTON, NB) The UNB Reds raised another national championship banner to the Aitken Centre rafters on Friday, then beat the visiting l'Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus 4-0.
Patrick Watling (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) and Stephen Anderson (Morell, PE) each scored twice to lead the Reds. Watling added an assist, earning Subway Player of the Game honours.
"It was great," said Watling. "There was a lot of pressure on us to come out and produce for the fans. I'm glad we got it done."
The teams skated through a decently paced first period without scoring.
UNB did outshoot the visitors 16-3 in the first.
At 4:06 of the second, with Moncton on the power-play, the Reds forced a neutral zone turnover.
Tyler Boland (St. John's, NL) carried the puck into the offensive zone and fed a beautiful pass to Watling on a 2-on-1. Watling beat Moncton netminder Etienne Montpetit (Valleyfield, QC) to give the home team a 1-0 lead on the short-handed effort.
The Reds carried that one goal lead into the second intermission, before the UNB offence came to life in the third period.
Watling scored his second of the game at 3:53, converting a nice pass from Alex Goulet (Disraeli, QC).
Less than two minutes later, Anderson scored his first of the season, beating Montpetit from in close to make it 3-0.
At 13:26, Anderson stole the puck at the Moncton blue-line, evaded at least two Aigles Bleus defenders and then beat Montpetit with a nifty deke to make the score 4-0.
"I have no idea how I got a breakaway there," said the fifth-year forward. "All I know is I did about three spins and I had a lane up the middle, so I took it to the net and made a deke and, lucky enough, had an opening."
Montpetit stopped 32 of the 36 shots he faced.
"I think we did some good things in the first period," said Montpetit. "After that they scored on our power-play and that made a big difference. They put a lot of shots on net, but I need to be prepared for this kind of game."
Rylan Parenteau (Saskatoon, SK) stopped the 12 shots he saw for the shut-out win.
"I thought our execution could've been better, but I thought we got better in the third," said Reds head coach Gardiner MacDougall. "The third was our best and those are building blocks. If you can keep the goals against to zero and win third periods, those are positive building blocks."
Moncton is now off until next Friday, when they host the Dal Tigers.
The Reds head to Charlottetown on Saturday to face the UPEI Panthers. Game time is 7:00pm.
RECAP: Andy Campbell/UNB Athletics
PHOTOS BY: James West/for UNB Athletics