WATERLOO -- Sophomore Samuel Tremblay of St. Basile, Que., tallied twice as McGill rallied for a 6-3 road triumph over Waterloo in OUA men's hockey at the Columbia Ice Fields, Friday.

The victory was McGill's seven consecutive in OUA play and third straight over Waterloo. Their all-time record improved to 15-18-3 against the Warriors, including a 6-7-1 dossier on the road, since the series was initiated in 1964.

McGill, which had a lopsided 52-29 advantage in shots, led 3-1 after the opening period and 4-3 after two, then outscored the hosts 2-0 in the final stanza.

The Warriors opened the scoring when Cam Nicoll scored his first of two goals at 9:21 of the game but Tremblay quickly turned things around with an even-strength goal at 14:10 and a shorthanded marker at 16:13. And if that didn't let the air out of the home team's balloon, just 51 seconds later, Alexandre Sills, a sophomore from Amos, Que., made it 3-1.

"Tremblay was moving his feet tonight and when he does that, he's very effective," said McGill head coach Kelly Nobes of his 5-foot-11, 171-pound speedster. "He could've had three or four tonight. He's really playing well now and makes our special teams better."

Freshman Antoine Dufort-Plante of Montreal upped the count to 4-1 with a power-play goal at 14:33 of the middle stanza. It marked the sixth consecutive game that the Redmen had connected on a man-advantage situation. Over that streak, they have tallied nine PP markers after netting only three in their first nine contests. McGill's PP unit is now operating at 14.5 per cent, a significant improvement over the paltry 2.9 per cent efficiency that they held at the nine-game mark.

On the other side of the coin, the penalty-killing unit continues to shine, snuffing out both Waterloo opportunities and rubbing salt in the wound with their nation-leading sixth shorthanded tally. The McGill PK unit has killed off 21 consecutive manpower situations and now ranks fourth in the OUA with a lofty 89.2 per cent success rate.

Waterloo narrowed the gap to 4-3 when Cole Murphy and the aforementioned Nicoll scored two late second-period goals, just 73 seconds apart. But McGill owned the final period with goals from third-year defenceman Dominic Talbot-Tassi (his fifth) of Mascouche, Que., and Guillaume Gauthier (4th), a sophomore from Drummondville, Que.

Second-year goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon of St. Joseph du Lac, Que., turned aside 26 of 29 shots for his league-leading 11th win in 13 decisions. He ranks third among the league's goalies with a 2.08 goals-against average, to go along with a save percentage of .927. Waterloo starter Mike Morrison made 46 saves, any of them spectacular, in a losing cause as his record tumbled to 4-4.

The Warriors dropped to eighth place in the 10-team OUA West with a 5-6-2 record. They will host Concordia (9-2-2) on Saturday. The Stingers are coming off a 3-1 decision against the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks.

McGill now leads the OUA East with a 13-2 record and sits five points ahead of second-place UQTR (9-2-3), which holds a game in hand. The Redmen will remain in Waterloo for one more day to conclude their two-game road trip to southern Ontario with a match-up against Laurier, which sits third in the OUA West with an 8-3-2 record.

REDMEN RAP: McGill junior centre Jerome Verrier collected a pair of helpers and upped his league-leading assist total to 19. He sits third in the OUA scoring race with a 4-19-23 record in 15 games... Talbot-Tassi, who owns a 5-9-14 dossier in 15 games, now shares the league lead in points scoring by defencemen... McGill ranks third in the country in shots per game (41.4), fifth in offence (4.20 goals per game) and fourth in defence (2.05 goals-against average)... Of the teams 63 goals scored, 12 have been on the PP and six on the PK.

LINK TO BOXSCORE

2017-18 OUA MEN'S HOCKEY STANDINGS
 

Rank	OUA West	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	York	14	10	4	0	20	0.714	46	38	1-0-0	6-4-0	177
2	Guelph	13	9	3	1	19	0.731	57	44	7-0-0	8-2-0	134
3	Laurier	13	8	3	2	18	0.692	43	32	0-1-0	6-2-2	122
4	Ryerson	13	8	4	1	17	0.654	51	43	0-1-1	5-4-1	152
5	Brock	13	5	5	3	13	0.500	36	38	1-0-0	5-3-2	144
6	Windsor	13	5	5	3	13	0.500	34	35	0-1-0	5-3-2	174
7	Lakehead	14	6	7	1	13	0.464	32	40	0-1-0	6-4-0	132
8	Waterloo	13	5	6	2	12	0.462	43	47	0-1-0	3-5-2	264
9	Toronto	13	4	8	1	9	0.346	24	40	0-2-1	2-7-1	138
10	Western	13	3	8	2	8	0.308	43	57	0-4-2	2-6-2	102
Rank	OUA East	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	McGill	15	13	2	0	26	0.867	63	31	7-0-0	9-1-0	235
2	UQTR	14	9	2	3	21	0.750	47	28	2-0-1	6-1-3	351
3	Concordia	13	9	2	2	20	0.769	50	34	1-0-1	7-2-1	219
4	Carleton	13	8	3	2	18	0.692	46	31	0-2-1	6-3-1	181
5	Queen's	13	7	3	3	17	0.654	43	36	3-0-0	5-3-2	177
6	Ottawa	13	7	4	2	16	0.615	47	45	3-0-1	5-4-1	160
7	UOIT	13	7	5	1	15	0.577	36	41	5-0-0	6-3-1	187
8	Nipissing	14	5	6	3	13	0.464	34	45	0-1-0	4-4-2	287
9	RMC	14	4	8	2	10	0.357	28	54	4-0-1	4-4-2	229
10	Laurentian	14	2	12	0	4	0.143	33	77	0-7-0	1-9-0	239