Box Score

John Lawrence and Jesse Ross each had a pair of goals and Ryan Holfeld made 25 saves as the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men's hockey team beat the Regina Cougars 7-2 on Friday night.

Derek Hulak, Brennan Bosch and Kenton Dulle also found the back of the net for the Huskies. Ian McNulty and Ryan Dech scored for the Cougars, while Andrew Hayes made 35 saves in a losing effort.
The Huskies opened the scoring just over a minute into the first period. Hulak netted his 12th goal of the year, and his league-leading 44th point. Saskatchewan continued to control the vast majority of the play, but the Cougars managed to hold them off until late in the opening frame. With 4:36 to go, Lawrence picked up a rebound from a wraparound attempt by the Huskies and fired it past Hayes for his sixth goal of the year. Three minutes later the Huskies struck again as Ross found the back of the net to put his team up by three. After 20 minutes the Huskies also led 16-6 in the shots department.

The Cougars got a chance on the power play early in the second, but couldn't get much going and it wasn't long before Saskatchewan added to their lead. Ross scored his second goal of the night seven minutes into the frame. Then just thirteen seconds later Lawrence made it 5-0 for the Huskies with his second of the game. The Huskies struck again at the 13:16 mark, as Hulak fired a cross-ice pass to Bosch who tapped it past Hayes to make it 6-0. Dulle extended the Huskies lead to seven with just under five minutes left in the period, once again on the power play.

Despite the large deficit the Cougars came out stronger in the third and finally got on the board early in the frame. McNulty fired one past Holfeld to break the shutout at the 4:08 mark. The Cougars added another one midway through the period on a long shot from Dech that went in off the post. But it was too little, too late as the Huskies skated away with the 7-2 victory.

With the win the Huskies improve to 16-10-1. The Cougars see their record fall to 11-14-2 and will be fighting for a playoff spot in the rematch tomorrow night. They will most likely need at least one point against the Huskies if the hope to make it into the post-season.

The two teams will meet again tomorrow night to wrap up their regular season schedule. Puck drop at The Co-operators Centre is at 7 p.m.