MONTREAL -- Freshman Michael Cramarossa of Markham, Ont., scored with 19 seconds remaining in sudden-death overtime as No.6 ranked McGill rallied for a hard-fought 3-2 road victory over Concordia in another OUA men's hockey thriller, played before a near capacity crowd at the Ed Meagher Arena, Saturday.

It was the sixth consecutive victory for the OUA East division-leading Redmen -- their second in as many nights over the Stingers -- and improved McGill's record to 102-97-14 in 213 lifetime meetings with their cross-town rivals, including 11 victories in their last 13 matchups.

"It was a good litmus test for us," said McGill head coach Kelly Nobes. "I liked the way we played both nights. We had similar shot counts, tons of scoring chances, odd-man breaks, a real solid penalty-kill and we had another power-play goal. I'd like to see us get more 5-on-5 goals with all the chances that we had but you gotta be pleased with back-to-back wins and the way we went about it."

The winning play, set up by Dominic Talbot-Tassi, was almost whistled down in the McGill zone as the offensive-minded rearguard went down to block a shot and had to dig the puck out of his pants before rushing up ice on a two-on-one with Cramarossa.

"It was down there, deep," chuckled Talbot-Tassi. "I knew that I had to dig it out quickly because I was worried that the referee would blow the whistle."

Cramarossa, a 21-year-old OHL product who now has four goals and 12 points in 14 regular season games, took the pass from Talbot-Tassi near the goal crease and jammed it past Concordia goaltender Marc-Antoine Turcotte with a delayed reaction before the referee signaled that the puck had crossed the line.

The Stingers opened the scoring late in the first period when Charles-Eric Legare notched his fourth of the season on a rebound at 17:19. McGill evened the count in the middle stanza when sophomore Alexandre Sills potted his team-leading eighth of the season, deflecting a Jerome Verrier point-shot on the power-play. Talbot-Tassi also drew an assist on the play.

With a 3-on-3 overtime session looming in the latter stages of the third period, sophomore Guillaume Gauthier put McGill ahead 2-1 at 13:07, converting a pretty-three-way passing play from Verrier and Antoine Dufour-Plante.

Verrier, a 5-foot-11, 185-pound centre from Drummondville, Que., who collected a goal and an assist, now ranks third in the OUA scoring race with 21 points -- 17 of them assists -- in 14 games. At the midway point of the campaign, he has already equaled his season points total from last year, when he posted a 6-15-21 record in 24 contests.

"He's a great two-way player and can play all situations but the biggest difference is the maturity in his game, in all aspects," said Nobes. "It's great to see that he's getting rewarded because of the growth that's occurred. He's become a real leader for us."

But Concordia forced overtime when sophomore Philippe Sanche found the back of the net at 18:14, setting the stage for the overtime heroics.

McGill had a 38-25 edge in shots as starting goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon made 23 saves to collect his league-leading 10th victory in 12 decisions. The 22-year-old science sophomore from St.Joseph du Lac, Que., lowered his goals-against average to 2.00 and his save percentage improved to .930.

The Redmen went 1-for-5 on the power-play and for the second straight night, McGill neutralized all seven Concordia power-plays. The Redmen PK unit has now killed off 19 consecutive shorthanded situations and has moved up to second in the OUA in that department with an 88.9 per cent success rate (64 kills on 72 opportunities). They trail York, which sits at 89.3 per cent.

Junior centre Frederic Gamelin suffered a laceration in the second period and because of the blood rule, was forced to change his jersey between periods. He started with No.9 but finished with No.2, which is an unused number that equipment manager Earl Hawke luckily happened to have on hand.

"He's a warrior," said McGill associate coach David Urquhart. "He got cut on the chin, went to the bench to get taped up (wrapped from the bottom of his chin, all the way around his head) and looked like Frankenstein out there. But he didn't miss a shift and was back out for the power-play." Between periods, he was stitched up by team physician Penny Baylis and was back out in time for the third period.

McGill, which improved to 12-2-0, now sits six points ahead of third-place Concordia (8-2-2) but the Stingers have two games in hand. The Redmen have a long road-trip to southern Ontario next weekend but the good news is that they play twice in the same city. McGill will meet the Waterloo Warriors (5-5-2) and the Laurier Golden Hawks (8-2-2), Nov. 24-25, respectively. Both games are slated for 7 p.m. starts and will be webcast on OUA.tv. McGill will close out the first semester the following weekend, when they host Laurentian and Nipissing, Dec. 1-2.

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2017-18 OUA MEN'S HOCKEY STANDINGS
 

Rank	OUA West	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	Laurier	12	8	2	2	18	0.750	42	29	3-0-1	6-2-2	114
2	York	13	9	4	0	18	0.692	43	36	0-2-0	6-4-0	150
3	Guelph	12	8	3	1	17	0.708	48	39	6-0-0	7-3-0	126
4	Ryerson	12	8	4	0	16	0.667	48	39	0-1-0	6-4-0	132
5	Windsor	12	5	4	3	13	0.542	32	31	3-0-2	5-3-2	168
6	Lakehead	13	6	6	1	13	0.500	31	37	2-0-0	6-4-0	112
7	Waterloo	12	5	5	2	12	0.500	40	41	1-0-0	4-4-2	258
8	Brock	12	4	5	3	11	0.458	34	37	0-1-0	4-4-2	132
9	Toronto	12	4	7	1	9	0.375	23	32	0-1-1	2-7-1	114
10	Western	12	3	8	1	7	0.292	39	52	0-4-1	3-6-1	94
Rank	OUA East	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	McGill	14	12	2	0	24	0.857	57	28	6-0-0	9-1-0	231
2	UQTR	13	8	2	3	19	0.731	39	27	1-0-1	6-1-3	315
3	Concordia	12	8	2	2	18	0.750	47	33	0-1-1	7-2-1	209
4	Carleton	12	8	3	1	17	0.708	44	28	0-2-0	7-3-0	177
5	Queen's	12	6	3	3	15	0.625	39	34	2-0-0	4-3-3	158
6	Ottawa	12	6	4	2	14	0.583	43	42	2-0-1	5-4-1	150
7	UOIT	12	6	5	1	13	0.542	33	40	4-0-0	5-4-1	179
8	Nipissing	12	4	5	3	11	0.458	27	41	0-2-2	4-4-2	269
9	RMC	13	3	8	2	8	0.308	23	50	3-0-1	3-5-2	223
10	Laurentian	12	2	10	0	4	0.167	26	62	0-5-0	1-9-0	186