WINDSOR, Ont – Veteran goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon made 41 saves and NCAA transfer Blake Hayward of Vancouver, B.C., scored the game-winner at 15:13 of the final period as McGill defeated Windsor 3-1 in an OUA men's hockey game at Capri Pizzeria Recreation Centre, Friday.

The result marked the first career regular season victory for Liam Heelis as head coach of McGill men's hockey program. The 28-year-old native of Georgetown, Ont., took as interim bench boss after the unexpected passing of Kelly Nobes on Sept. 4. 
 
"I thought the boys played hard," said Heelis, whose team spent 12 hours in Thanksgiving traffic to reach the venue on Thursday. "Their objective tonight was to play within our structure and have the highest compete-level of the two teams. They did those two things well. It was also nice to see the power-play unit also get rewarded. They'd been doing a great job through our first two regular season games and it was good to see them finish (their plays) tonight."
 
It was Hayward's third career goal but his first in regular season action. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound forward is in his inaugural year with McGill since transferring from Union College, an NCAA Div. 1 program.
 
"Blake has been a great addition for us, especially early (in the season) with (injured) co-captain Samuel Tremblay out of the line-up," Heelis added. "He's been tremendously reliable through the middle and defensive zones because of his tenacity in chasing down pucks. He also has two skilled line-mates, in Keanu Yamamoto and Antoine Dufort-Plante, who do a good forechecking job in turning pucks over on the opposition. It is nice to see the chemistry those three have put together."

McGill also worked both ends of their special teams units to great success. They killed off all four shorthanded situations and converted on two of seven power-play opportunities, including Michael Cramarossa's go-ahead goal at 10:40 of the first period. Guillaume Gauthier of Ste. Marthe sur le Lac, Que., also connected with the man-advantage to make it 3-1 with just 63 seconds remaining in the final period.
 
Ethan Skinner – who's goal evened the score at 15:33 of the first period – was the only Lancer to beat Guindon, the 6-foot-1, 188-pound wall in the McGill net.

Windsor bombarded the McGill net but Guindon blunted the Lancers' offence, including all 16 shots faced in the final period, for his first victory of the season.

At the other end of the ice, Lancers netminder Jonathan Reinhart stopped 35 pucks in a losing cause.
 
The teams combined for 70 penalty minutes, including 38 to McGill, which  which improved to 12-8 in 20 lifetime meetings with Windsor,

McGill (1-1-1) and Windsor (1-1-0) don't have much time to recuperate as they will meet again on Saturday (Oct. 12) at 7:30 p.m. in a game that will be streamed on OUA-TV.

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