MONTREAL - Keanu Yamamoto scored at 4:45 of overtime and defenceman Nikolas Brouillard posted a four-point soiree as McGill rallied for a 4-3 win over Ontario Tech in an OUA men's hockey thriller at McConnell Arena, Friday.
 
McGill (6-5-1), which improved its lifetime record against the Ridgebacks to 17-2-0, moved into sole possession of third place in the congested OUA East, one point ahead of Ottawa and Concordia, two points ahead of both Nipissing and Ontario Tech (5-7-1).
 
Despite a 43-34 edge in shots, McGill trailed for 59 minutes. They pulled goaltender Louis-Philip Guindon twice in the final two minutes, and it paid off both times with goals at 18:06 and 19:10 to force overtime. As far as records indicate, it appears to be the first time in team history that McGill has struck twice with the extra attacker, leading to a victory.
 
"Although we were very flat to start, the guys hung on," said head coach Liam Heelis whose team was outshot 19-9 in the first period and trailed 2-0 heading into the intermission. "From what our guys managed tonight, there's an opportunity to learn and build on it for the rest of the season. It doesn't matter the circumstances. We can pull ourselves out of any situation that we're in. They know the way they can do that is by relying on each other and trusting each other. That's how they did it tonight and how they will in the future."
 
Ontario Tech, based in Oshawa and formerly known as UOIT, extended their lead to 3-1 after two periods. But with an extra man in the final moments of the third stanza, Guillaume Gauthier struck for his second of the game at 18:06 to make it 3-2. Brouillard then netted the equalizer 64 seconds later for his fifth of the season.
 
Yamamoto's winner, tallied just 15 seconds before the expiration of the new seven-minute, 3-on-3 overtime format, was his fifth goal of the campaign. The speedy 5-foot-6 junior forward from Spokane, Wash., has 12 points in 12 OUA games this season and a 33-51-84 overall record in 97 career contests.

Brouillard, a third-year ECHL transfer from St. Hilaire, Que., had put McGill on the scoreboard midway through the second period with his first of the night, cutting the deficit to 2-1. He was in on all McGill goals, collecting assists on the Gauthier marker and the Yamamoto winner. Brouillard now ranks second on the team in points with a 5-5-10 record in 12 games.
 
He trails teammate Dominic Talbot-Tassi, who collected an assist on the tying goal and now leads all OUA blueliners with 14 points in a dozen contests. The fifth-year mining engineer from Mascouche, Que., owns a 28-97-125 record in 124 career regular season games and a 36-144-180 dossier in 181 contests overall. He is five points shy of Marc-Andre Dorion's regular season points record and needs a dozen to erase Dorion's overall mark.
 
"When you look at Brouillard and Talbot-Tassi, you expect to see... statistics (like that)," added Heelis of his two defensive pillars. "But what they do on the penalty-kill and five-on-five often goes overlooked. This year they've done an incredible job in both those areas. The more they simplify their game, the more they get rewarded for it. They're starting to shoot more and they're being rewarded for that mentality. It's good to see them building their confidence slowly and working together."
 
Generating the offence for Ontario Tech was Sean Ross, a freshman forward from Bracebridge, Ont., who bagged a pair of goals. Their other marksman was Josh Maguire of Cobourg, Ont.
 
Guindon, of St. Joseph du Lac, made 31 saves to register the victory between the pipes for McGill. The 6-foot-1, 188-pound kinesiology senior improved his record to 6-4
 
Ridgebacks netminder Michael Bullion, a sophomore from Anchorage, Alaska., was beaten four times on 43 shots and took the loss as his record dropped to 3-6.
 
Special teams played no part in the game. McGill went 0-for-6 on the power-play while Ontario Tech was blanked on eight man-advantage situations.
 
Both teams play again in less than 24 hours as McGill (6-5-1) hosts Laurentian (3-7-2) on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Ontario Tech (5-7-1) visits Concordia (5-6-2).

GAME NOTES: In a classy tribute to former McGill bench boss Kelly Nobes, who passed away unexpectedly on Sept. 4, the Ontario Tech coaching staff, under the guidance of Curtis Hodgins, opted to wear Irish tweed flat caps behind the bench. It marked the second time this season that the visiting team's coaches chose to display the fashion statement made famous by Nobes. The Waterloo staff, under the direction of Brian Bourque, were the first to do that at McConnell Arena this season on Oct. 19.

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