MONTREAL -- Goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon registered a 35-save shutout and Frederic Gamelin scored a pair of goals as the McGill Redmen blanked the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières 3-0 in OUA men's hockey at McConnell Arena on Saturday.
It marked McGill's first whitewash over the Patriotes since Oct. 19, 2014 when Jacob Gervais-Chouinard turned aside 41 shots in a 3-0 victory on home ice. The Redmen have now won five of the last six showdowns with UQTR, including two of three this season and have improved their record to 83-158-17 lifetime against the Pats, with a 53-64-8 mark on home ice.
Guindon, who was invited to the NHL's Washington Capitals rookie camp in 2013, was an impenetrable wall. Despite McGill being outshot 35-32, the 6-foot-1, 188-pound kinesiology sophomore from St. Joseph du Lac, Que., merited just his second career goose-egg with the Redmen after posting 18 career shutouts in the QMJHL.
"Obviously LP had a great game in net," said McGill bench boss Kelly Nobes, who improved his lifetime coaching record to 350-263-14 in 17 years of university hockey, including a 210-95-3 mark at McGill. "He really controlled his rebounds and especially played the puck real well tonight. Because we were forcing the dump-in quite a bit when it was 5-on-5, he had to play a lot of pucks and did a real good job of that."
McGill, which thoroughly dominated the first period, had outshot their guests 25-22 through the first two but the game was still scoreless heading into the final frame. In that third, despite being outshot 13-7, the Redmen exploded for three unanswered goals.
"We played a solid 60 minutes tonight," said Nobes. "One of our objectives was to stick with it. We knew weren't going to win the game in the first period and certainly that's the way it was with both goalies shutting the door through 40 minutes. But we stuck with it and were able to get a few in the third period."
Sophomore Samuel Tremblay of St. Basile, Que., had opened the scoring at 5:28 of the third.
Gamelin, a 5-foot-8, 170-pound centre from St. Polycarpe, Que., netted his first of the evening to make it 2-0 at 8:02 of the third, then added another at 16:42 to put the game out of reach.
"The young guys that we brought in are really energetic," offered newly-minted team captain Nathan Chiarlitti, a veteran defenceman from Maple, Ont., in his second season with the Redmen but final year of eligibility after transferring from St.FX. "It's always kind of cool to get young blood on the team and I find guys coming out of junior have a lot of vigour and a lot of energy. I know it's early (in the season) but I feel like there's something special here and we'll just do our best to grind it out throughout the year."
Patriotes netminder Sebastien Auger made 29 saves through 58 minutes before being pulled in favour of the extra attacker.
McGill was 0-for-3 on the power-play but perfect on four penalty-kills.
"Our penalty-kill was good," said Nobes. "Obviously we were 4-for-4. We grinded it out there on the PK and did what we needed to do. Our power-play had some good looks too in the first part of the game when we got chances. We needed to have a little more of a shot mentality while playing 5-on-5, too. We had 24 attempted shots in the second period and only got 10 to the net, so we can do a better job of getting pucks to the net."
The Redmen (2-0) host cross-town rival Concordia (0-0) as part of McGill Homecoming Week on Friday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. at McConnell Arena. UQTR (0-1) plays Nipissing (0-0) that same evening.
REDMEN RAP: Freshman F Michael Cramarossa's family is visiting from Markham, Ont., this weekend and will be celebrating Thanksgiving with him, The six-foot, 190-pound forward was recruited out of OHL, where he played for Hamilton. He was invited to the Chicago Blackhawks rookie camp last month and is one of seven current Redmen who have had tryouts with NHL teams. Others include D Nikolas Brouillard (Las Vegas), D Gianluca Curcuruto (Columbus), D Nathanael Halbert (Pittsburgh), G Louis-Philip Guindon (Washington), F Jerome Verrier (Detroit) and D Nathan Chiarlitti (Arizona)..
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