MONTREAL -- Rookie Keanu Yamamoto of Spokane, Wash., tallied two goals, including the game-winner, as No.5 McGill wrapped up the first semester with a 4-3 win over the Nipissing University Lakers in OUA men's hockey at McConnell Arena, Saturday.

The Redmen outshot their guests 49-26 and improved their lifetime record to 21-4-0 overall against the Lakers.

McGill now enters the month-long exam and holiday break atop the OUA East division with a 15-3-0 record and 30 points in the standings, four ahead of Concordia (12-2-2), which holds two games in hand. The Redmen have won two of three regular season meetings with the Stingers and will confront them once more, on Feb. 9 in the annual Ronald Corey Cup rivalry game at the Loyola campus.

"It's been a good first half (of the season) for us," said head coach Kelly Nobes, who improved his record to 223-98-3 in 324 games overall behind the McGill bench. "Lots of growth for a group with a lot of young players. We set ourselves up for a good second half but that's where the real hockey's played. We've got some really tough opponents in the second half and a challenging playoff ahead of us, so that'll be the tale of the tape. That'll be where we'll see more growth, be battle-hardened and get ready for the playoffs."

The team could set a single-season record for wins -- surpassing their 24-2-2 mark attained in 2010-11 -- should they win all 10 of their remaining games (before playoffs). The Redmen offence currently ranks third in the OUA (4.17 goals per game), while the defence sits second (2.32 GAA).

"Our transition from offence to defence needs to be quicker, our play in our own end needs to be better, and that just comes with experience, time and playing better teams," offered Nobes, not content to sit back after the strong first half. "We still have more growth to do in those areas and we will (see it), because we've seen lots of maturing in our team so far and we expect that to continue."

Nipissing led 1-0 after the first period on a goal from Travis McEvoy at 5:26, but the middle frame was all McGill, which held a suffocating 29-3 advantage in shots on net. The school record for most shots in a period is 31 achieved on Jan. 14, 2000 in the middle frame of a 13-0 whitewash against RMC.

Yamamoto, a 5-foot-7, 166-pound forward, was playing in front of his parents for the first time this season as they made the long trek in from Spokane, Wash. He tied things up just 66 seconds into the second period and Jerome Verrier of Drummondville, Que., put the Redmen ahead 47 seconds after that. It was the sixth marker of the season for Verrier, who sits third in the OUA scoring race with 27 points in 18 games.

Teammate Frederic Gamelin of St. Polycarpe, Que., added a power-play marker at 7:37 and Yamamoto closed things out with 27 seconds left in the stanza, registering his seventh goal and 15th point in 18 contests.

Lakers top point-scoring forward Erik Robichaud cut the lead in half with his sixth goal, on the man-advantage, only 45 seconds into the third. That snapped McGill's penalty-killing streak at 27 consecutive manpower situations.

Nipissing's Tyler Brown made it 4-3 at 10:03 and the Lakers pulled their goalie for an extra attacker in the final minute but couldn't get the equalizer.

McGill goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon of St. Joseph du Lac, Que., turned away 23 of 26 pucks as his record improved to 12-3 on the season. He leads all OUA goalies in wins, ranks fourth in goals-against average (2.23) and owns a .922 save percentage.

Nipissing's Brent Moran made 45 saves on 49 shots in a losing effort as his record tumbled to 3-8.

The Redmen were 1-for-5 on the power play and 3-for-4 on the penalty-kill. McGill's PP now ranks 15th in the league at 15.3 per cent, while the PK unit is second in the OUA and seventh in the nation with an 89.0 per cent success rate.

"You never know how guys are going to adjust to the league," noted Nobes, whose roster features seven freshmen, eight sophomores. eight juniors and five seniors. "We're pretty happy with the way that our younger guys have stepped up and have quickly adapted to the pace of our league, and how much we're getting contributions from everybody. Our offence is very spread out and that's a credit to our veteran players who are getting better, but also to our young guys that have gotten better as we've played our 24 games (including preseason)."

McGill (15-3-0) returns to the ice against Ottawa (8-5-3) on Jan. 5 and will be looking to avenge a shocking 6-3 setback in the nation's capital on Oct. 28. The Lakers (5-9-3) are off until jan. 6 when they will host Laurentian (2-15-0).

REDMEN RAP: After the game, the team held their second annual Family Night pot luck meal, organized by defenceman Dominic Talbot-Tassi's parents in the Alumni Lounge at McConnell Arena, with most of the players parents on hand. The long distance award was a virtual dead heat between forward Keanu Yamamoto's family (a seven-hour flight from Spokane) and goaltender Joe Fleschler's clan (a seven-hour drive from Westfield, N.J.)... McGill's 10 remaining games has the team playing Carleton three times, UQTR and Ottawa twice each, then singles against Queen's, UOIT and Concordia.

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2017-18 OUA MEN'S HOCKEY STANDINGS (updated through Jan. 3)
 

Rank	OUA West	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	Ryerson	16	11	4	1	23	0.719	66	50	3-0-1	7-2-1	176
2	Guelph	16	11	4	1	23	0.719	72	56	0-1-0	9-1-0	179
3	York	17	11	5	1	23	0.676	55	48	0-1-0	5-4-1	209
4	Laurier	16	10	4	2	22	0.688	58	38	0-1-0	6-3-1	156
5	Brock	16	8	5	3	19	0.594	49	45	4-0-0	6-2-2	162
6	Windsor	16	6	6	4	16	0.500	44	47	1-0-0	4-3-3	224
7	Lakehead	15	6	8	1	13	0.433	33	43	0-2-0	5-5-0	164
8	Waterloo	16	5	8	3	13	0.406	48	67	0-3-1	2-6-2	330
9	Western	16	5	9	2	12	0.375	56	66	1-0-0	3-5-2	122
10	Toronto	16	4	11	1	9	0.281	32	55	0-5-1	2-7-1	225
Rank	OUA East	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	McGill	18	15	3	0	30	0.833	75	42	2-0-0	9-1-0	253
2	Concordia	16	12	2	2	26	0.813	71	43	4-0-1	8-1-1	293
3	UQTR	17	10	3	4	24	0.706	57	37	0-1-1	4-2-4	365
4	Carleton	16	10	4	2	22	0.688	59	38	2-0-0	6-3-1	230
5	UOIT	16	10	5	1	21	0.656	46	47	8-0-0	8-2-0	203
6	Queen's	16	9	4	3	21	0.656	52	46	2-0-0	6-4-0	194
7	Ottawa	16	8	5	3	19	0.594	55	58	0-1-1	4-4-2	182
8	Nipissing	17	5	9	3	13	0.382	45	63	0-4-0	2-6-2	329
9	RMC	17	5	9	3	13	0.382	36	65	0-1-1	5-3-2	255
10	Laurentian	17	2	15	0	4	0.118	41	96	0-10-0	0-10-0	281