"I thought we played really well. Just to keep pace with Acadia you have to play a good game. It all evened out and when it goes to a shootout it's anybody's game. That's not how you end games in the playoffs but it's nice to get the extra point," said head coach Trevor Stienburg.
The Axemen opened the scoring at 15:54 of the first period when Colin Archer went around two Huskies and scored on Anthony Peters (Blyth, Ont.) .
Parker Deighan (Kensington, P.E.I.) tied the game in the second period when his snap shot trickled through the armpit of Axemen goalie Peter DiSalvo.
It appeared as though SMU would take the tie into the intermission but late in the period the Axemen had a 5-on-3 power play and Dustin Ekelman made every second count when his shot from the slot beat Peters with just three seconds left on the clock to give Acadia a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes.
Both teams had several chances in the third period. Acadia killed off two SMU power-plays but in the dying minutes of the game Colin Archer was sent off to the penalty box for roughing.
With Peters on the bench and an extra attacker on the ice, the Huskies pressured for the tying goal on the power-play.
Stephen Johnson (Guelph, Ont.) fed a pass down low to Matt Tipoff (Toronto, Ont.), who quickly went across the ice to Shawn O'Donnell. O'Donnell took a split second before firing a shot into the Acadia goal to tie the game with 27 seconds remaining. Overtime solved nothing as both teams played strong defense and the goalies stopped everything thrown their way.
The shootout went five rounds with Gerrad Grant (Halifax,N.S.) and Chris MacKinnon (Richmond Hill, Ont.) scoring for the Huskies while Liam Heelis and Andrew Clark were successful for Acadia.
Peters would eventually stop the next Acadia shooter and give Ryan Hiller the chance to become the game's hero.
"Both of the guys before me went low glove backhand and scored, so I was thinking about doing that. I tried to pull a fake and get the goalie to bite but it didn't work, so I went back hand and he still didn't bite so I pulled it across quickly and went to my go-to move," said Hillier.
Peters says that months of practicing shootout drills has paid off with that win.
"You just have to have fun with shootouts. They suck to lose that's for sure but when you win, they feel a lot better."
With the win, the Huskies have now gone 10-1 in their last 11 games but still sit one point behind UNB for first place in the AUS.
Hiller thinks the team is continuing to get better every game.
"Games like tonight show we are not going to quit. There were 30 seconds left and we kept fighting. It's our team's character we never give up and will never quit. We aren't focused on playoffs we are just taking this game by game and making sure we give our best effort every night. If we do that, good things are going to happen every night," says Hiller.
Source: Saint Mary's Sports Information
Photo courtesy of Nick Pearce (www.123photo.ca)