MONTREAL -- Alexandre Sills of Amos, Que., tallied his first career hat-trick as the McGill Redmen rallied from an early two-goal deficit to topple visiting Guelph 7-4 in OUA men's hockey at McConnell Arena on Friday.

It marked McGill's sixth consecutive win over the Gryphons -- the league's defending Queen's Cup champions -- and improved their lifetime record to 30-13-5 in head-to-head matches. In a wild, high-scoring affair, the host team outshot their guests by a 53-32 margin, including a staggering 28-8 advantage in the middle frame. The 28 shots matched the second highest output in a period in McGill history and was three shy of the school record -- also achieved in the second period -- against RMC on Jan. 31, 2000.

This game had everything except the kitchen sink. There were three power-play goals, two shorthanded markers and even a penalty shot, which was missed by Christopher Lalonde, who hit the goal-post on his attempt midway through the second period. The two shorties tied the single-game school record accomplished numerous times and was the first occurrence in seven years, since a 7-1 win over Queen's on Oct. 23, 2010.

Sills, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound centre who registered a stellar 16-4-1 record in the faceoff circle, netted each of his goals in different situations. His first came at even strength at 8:03 of the second period, tying the game at 2-2. His second was on the man-advantage with 28 seconds left in the middle frame to put McGill ahead 5-3. The mechanical engineering sophomore then scored a shorthanded marker at 12:53 of the third to close out the scoring. He becomes the first player to score a "Mario Lemieux hat-trick" since Acadia's Sam Fioretti did so against Moncton on Feb. 4, 2017. With five goals in as many games, Sills has already surpassed his total of four in 17 games during his injury-plagued freshman campaign.

After Guelph jumped to an early 2-0 lead with goals by Todd Winder at 2:27 and by Manny Gialedakis on the power play at 11:29 of the first, defenceman Dominic Talbot-Tassi of Mascouche, Que., got things going for the home side at 15:03 of the period.

Sills opened the second period scoring, followed by Samuel Tremblay of St. Basile, Que., at 10:21 and Francis Lambert-Lemay of St. Ours, Que., at 11:21. The Gryphons' Max McCutcheon narrowed the gap to 4-3 at 11:43 but Sills restored the Redmen's two-goal lead.

Cody Thompson opened the third-period scoring for the Gryphons with a power-play goal at 5:18. McGill rookie Quinn Syrydiuk of Toronto netted his first career goal, a shorthanded tally at 6:14 -- his teammates collected the souvenir-- and Sills then followed up with his own shorty just six minutes later.

Along with Sills, Talbot-Tassi (1-2-3) and teammate Jerome Verrier (0-3-3) of Drummondville, Que., had three-point nights for the Redmen.

McGill netminder Louis-Philip Guindon of St. Joseph du Lac, Que., made 28 saves on 32 shots to earn the win.

Guelph goalie Andrew Masters registered 46 saves, in a losing cause, including 20 stops in the second stanza.

The Redmen were 1-for-5 with the man-advantage while Guelph was 2-for-6.

McGill (4-1-0) hosts Brock (0-1-1) at 7 p.m. on Saturday (Oct. 21) at McConnell Arena. The Gryphons (1-1-1) visit Concordia (1-0-1) that evening. The Stingers defeated Brock 5-3 on Friday.

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