MONTREAL – Forward Guillaume Gauthier tallied three points and defenceman Dominic Talbot-Tassi bagged a career-high four assists as McGill delivered a wild, 7-4 home-ice victory over the Queen's Gaels in OUA men's hockey at McConnell Arena, Saturday.  

McGill, which won for the third consecutive outing, improved to 5-3-1 and sits third in 10-team OUA East. Queen's dropped to eighth place with a 4-5-0 record. McGill now owns a 129-55-2 lifetime record versus the Gaels in a series that dates all the way back to 1895. The McGill pucksters have won three straight over their bitter rivals, including a 2-0 mark this fall, and are scheduled to clash once more, on Nov. 23 in Kingston.

The wide-open affair was McGill's highest scoring output since a 7-5 victory over UQTR on Jan. 5, 2019.  The game, which served as the annual Friends of McGill Hockey Homecoming, featured a 46-38 shots advantage for Queen's and 12 power-play situations. Six different skaters scored for an injury-plagued McGill squad, that dressed only 18 players but led 4-2 after the opening frame and 6-3 after two.

"Offensively I thought our guys did a lot of good things, played creatively and worked well together. It is great to see their hard work paying off in the offensive zone," said head coach Liam Heelis, whose team started the season with back-to-back losses but hasn't had a setback since, outscoring opponents 16-8 in the process.

"It's a testament to the things we've worked on as a team. We have been working on bouncing back, controlling what we can control and not letting previous shifts weigh us down but rather focusing on the next ones. With the mindset our captains are leading by… that is what is setting the tone for some of the outcomes we've seen recently."
 
Gauthier, a 5-foot-10, 200-pound left-winger from Ste. Marthe sur le Lac, Que., tallied twice and added a helper. The 24-year-old economics senior opened the scoring at 6:46 of the first period, then set up rookie Anthony Boucher to make it 2-0 at 10:11. He later struck for another marker, his team-leading fifth of the season, on the power-play to put his troops ahead 6-3 at 11:11 of the second period. With a 5-4-9 record in nine games played, Gauthier is only three goals shy of a matching his single-season career high.

Talbot-Tassi's quadruple assist soirée moved him into the team's point-scoring lead with a 2-8-10 record in nine contests. The 5-foot-9, 185-pound mining engineering senior from Mascouche, Que., also upped his iron-man streak to 121 consecutive regular season games played, with a 27-94-121 record over his five seasons. .

Other McGill marksmen included Christophe Lalonde, Harlan Orr, who netted the game-winner in the second, Michael Cramarossa and Keanu Yamamoto.
 
Goal-scorers for the Gaels included Mason Kohn, who struck twice, along with singles from William Brown and Luke Edwards on a power-play.
 
McGill was 3-for-7 with the man advantage while Queen's only managed one goal on five power-plays.
 
McGill netminder Louis-Philip Guindon of St. Joseph du Lac, Que., made 42 saves on 46 shots and improved to 5-2-0. The 6-foot-1, 188-pound kinesiology senior ranks second among all OUA goalies in save percentage (.942), third in wins and eighth in goals-against average (2.28).
 
Queen's goaltender Luke Richardson was beaten six times on 25 shots as his record dropped to 4-5. He was replaced midway through the second period by rookie Alexander Horawski, who made 12 saves on 13 shots in 28:49 of ice time.

McGill (5-3-1) faces its stiffest test yet on Nov. 8 as the first-place Carleton Ravens (9-1-0) visit McConnell Arena for a 7 p.m. puck-drop. The same night, Queen's (4-5-0) will try to bounce back at home against Toronto (6-2-0).

McGILL MURMURS: A plethora of former McGill players returned to celebrate the team's Homecoming game and their 144th season of hockey on the campus. They played an alumni game in the early afternoon, which ended with a 9-8 final score, followed by a family skate and the McGill-Queen's rivalry game. Among the faces spotted in the crowd was former captain Ken Morin, who now scouts for the Montreal Canadiens. A plethora of former goalies were on hand, including recently-inducted McGill Sports Hall of Fame honoree Mathieu Poitras, along with Dr. Stephane Beaudoin, Joe Fleschler, Danny Mireault, Dan Gubiani and Mike Farmer. Also in attendance was former assistant coach Dino Masanotti, along with Martin Raymond, Liam Heelis. Neil Blunden, Dr. Jay McMullan, Mario DeBenedicts, David Lizotte, Vincent Barnard, Michael Wells, Simon Marcotte-Legare, Eric L'Italien, Jocelyn Perreault, Brent Bannerman, Marc-Andre Daneau, Alex Chenevert, Ken Covo, Jan Kaminsky, Sebastien Langlois, Pierre-Antoine Paquet, Alex Sills and FMH alumni president Mike Nelson.

SCORING SUMMARY

OUA SCOREBOARD

OUA STANDINGS AND STATS LEADERS