TROIS-RIVIERES -- The UQTR Patriotes scored a pair of shorthanded goals and added a power-play marker en route to a 5-4 victory over McGill in a high-scoring OUA men's hockey game at Le Colisée, Wednesday.

That evened the count at 2-2 in the four games played between these bitter rivals this season, with the teams 1-1 against each other in regular season play and one confrontation remaining. UQTR improved their lifetime record to 159-83-17 overall against the Redmen, who have taken five of the last seven meetings.

The visiting Redmen outshot UQTR 42-24 but the teams were tied 1-1 after the opening period and the Patriotes led 4-3 after two. Both teams tallied once in the final frame. UQTR, which was called for 22 of 30 penalty minutes, went 1-for-4 on the power play and killed off five of six penalties. The Pats have the second-best PP in the 20-team league at 21.4 per cent, while McGill has struggled at 14.9.

"Too many guys had a poor performance for us to have a positive result," said McGill head coach Kelly Nobes. "That's affects special teams, as well as five-on-five... The power-play clearly struggled tonight. We weren't doing what we were supposed to do and we can be a lot better as a group."

McGill freshman Michael Cramarosa of Hamilton, Ont., opening the scoring at the midway mark of the first period but the Pats rallied with three consecutive goals -- two of them shorties -- before the second period was eight minutes old on successful strikes by Deven St-Hilaire, defenceman Bruno-Carl Denis and Alexandre Lemay, respectively.

McGill rallied to tie the score at 3-3 with two goals in 58 seconds when senior Jan Kaminsky of Kennesaw, Ga., connected on a power-play at 9:13 of the middle frame, followed almost immediately by junior Samuel Hodhod of Montreal, at 10:11.

However, centre Julien Gagné regained the lead on a power-play for the Pats, who took a 4-3 advantage into the final stanza. Defenceman Alexandre Leclerc notched the game-winner at 7:41 of the final period, putting the Pats ahead 5-3. McGill narrowed the gap to one  when rookie Keanu Yamamoto of Spokane, Wash., netted his eighth of the season in the final minute with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker.

Sophomore Louis-Philip Guindon of St. Joseph du Lac, Que., started between the pipes for the visitors and was beaten five times on 24 shots as his lofty record tumbled to 14-4. UQTR's Sebastien Auger, a junior from St. Augustin de Desmaures, Que., kicked out 38 of 42 shots for the victory and improved to 9-4.

The Patriotes (13-3-4) leap-frogged past Concordia (13-2-3) into second place in the OUA East and now sit just four points behind division-leading McGill (17-4-0) with a game in hand. The Redmen, who have seven games remaining in their schedule, will host longtime rival Queen's (11-4-3) on Friday at McConnell Arena. A capacity crowd is expected for the showdown -- between two of the oldest hockey programs in the world, dating back to 1895 -- which is slated for a 7 p.m. start. McGill, which was swept by the Gaels in the OUA East best-of-three final last spring, has won the only meeting this season, 3-2 in overtime at Kingston.

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2017-18 OUA MEN'S HOCKEY STANDINGS
 

Rank	OUA East	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	McGill	21	17	4	0	34	0.810	85	51	0-1-0	8-2-0	285
2	UQTR	20	13	3	4	30	0.750	72	49	3-0-0	6-2-2	405
3	Concordia	18	13	2	3	29	0.806	77	48	5-0-2	7-1-2	311
4	Queen's	18	11	4	3	25	0.694	58	48	4-0-0	7-3-0	214
5	Carleton	18	11	5	2	24	0.667	65	43	0-1-0	5-4-1	264
6	UOIT	18	10	7	1	21	0.583	48	53	0-2-0	8-2-0	239
7	Ottawa	18	8	7	3	19	0.528	57	63	0-3-1	4-4-2	220
8	Nipissing	18	5	10	3	13	0.361	46	65	0-5-0	1-7-2	339
9	RMC	19	5	11	3	13	0.342	42	74	0-3-1	5-3-2	281
10	Laurentian	18	3	15	0	6	0.167	43	97	1-0-0	1-9-0	289
Rank	OUA West	GP	W	L	OTL	PTS	PCT	GF	GA	STK	P10	PIM
1	Guelph	18	13	4	1	27	0.750	77	58	2-0-0	9-1-0	205
2	Ryerson	18	12	4	2	26	0.722	76	55	4-0-2	7-1-2	186
3	Laurier	18	11	5	2	24	0.667	62	47	1-0-0	6-3-1	162
4	York	19	11	7	1	23	0.605	60	57	0-3-0	4-5-1	248
5	Brock	18	9	6	3	21	0.583	54	49	0-1-0	7-2-1	203
6	Lakehead	17	8	8	1	17	0.500	41	48	2-0-0	5-5-0	176
7	Windsor	18	6	7	5	17	0.472	49	55	0-1-1	3-3-4	236
8	Western	18	7	9	2	16	0.444	65	70	3-0-0	4-4-2	146
9	Waterloo	18	5	10	3	13	0.361	51	75	0-5-1	2-7-1	367
10	Toronto	18	5	12	1	11	0.306	38	61	1-0-0	2-7-1	239