Sask. Huskies force Game 3 in Canada West men’s hockey semifinal

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One game.

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One chance.

Winner moves on. Loser gets stuck in the classroom for the remainder of the season.

There’s a national championship berth on the line Sunday night and the University of Saskatchewan Huskies will take it.

“Absolutely,” said fourth-year Huskies defenceman Parker Gavlas, whose team will battle the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds in the third-and-deciding game of their best-of-three Canada West semifinal series Sunday night (6 p.m.) at Merlis Belsher Place.

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“Any chance that your team gets a chance to go to nationals is huge. Now we’ve just got one more game to try and get there and we’re excited.”

The Dogs staved off elimination with a 3-2 victory Saturday over UBC before a packed MBP.

Whoever wins Sunday’s finale earns an automatic berth into the upcoming University Cup tournament in Ottawa, Ont., and a spot in the Canada West final against the winner between the Mount Royal University Cougars and University of Alberta Golden Bears.

“Give credit to them (T-Birds) — they’ve been hard on us in our D zone and it’s been a little frustrating for us and it’s slowed down our offence but I think the biggest thing is we kept battling back,” said Gavlas.

“Getting those chances on the power play late in (Saturday’s) game were huge for us. Those guys that scored are big guys for us.”

Saskatchewan last won a Canada West men’s hockey crown back in 2020 in Dave Adolph’s final season.

Since then, first under former NHL coach Mike Babcock and now with Brandin Cote at the helm, the Huskies have been looking to get back on top.

“If you’re looking at it, we’ve got ourselves in a good spot,” said Huskies head coach Cote, adding that, if somebody offered them this opportunity at the start of the season, they’d take it.

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“For sure.”

Cote is cautiously optimistic, as the T-Birds have done a good job of smothering the Dogs.

“They (T-Birds) got a good team,” said Cote. “They’re playing well at the right time, so it’s definitely not easy. They showed it (Saturday). They locked it down and didn’t give us a whole lot. We were frustrated the first period. I thought we settled in as the game went on. We stuck with it. That’s the belief in this group that our guys have and our power play came through when we needed it.”

Landon Kosior, Chantz Petruic and Vince Loschiavo scored power play goals Saturday.

“I joked with them in the room, that’s what they get paid for,” Cote said of Petruic and Loschiavo’s clutch goals in the final five minutes. “It was a great team effort. It was ugly at times but the ebbs and flows of playoffs, it’s not always going to be perfect. Again, that’s the maturity of our group. We still have a big, tall task (Sunday).

“We’ve got to re-group here,” stressed Cote. “Obviously, that’s a huge boost for us and gives us some confidence going into (Sunday).”

Jonny Lambos a major for charging with 5:35 remaining proved costly as the Huskies scored twice on the power play, including the winner by Loschiavo with 44 seconds remaining.

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“We gave them different looks — obviously it’s harder for them when we’re in different positions,” said Loschiavo.

“And we executed.”

Saskatchewan forward Ben Tkachuk, who survived a car crash during the off-season, got knocked out of the game and his status is unknown for Sunday’s deciding game.

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