MONTREAL -- Goaltender Brad Van Schubert made 39 saves and just missed scoring an empty-net goal by fractions of an inch as the Royal Military College Paladins pulled off a stunning 3-2 upset over McGill in men's hockey at McConnell Arena, Saturday.

The result halted a modest four-game win streak for the home side in addition to ending RMC's 30-game losing streak to McGill dating back to their last victory, a 2-1 decision in Kingston on Jan. 26, 2008. McGill is now 71-9-4 lifetime over RMC since the long-time rivals first crossed paths more than a century ago, in 1892.

It was a costly setback in the standings for McGill (9-6-1), which dropped to fourth place in the 10-team OUA East Division, two points in arrears of Ottawa (10-4-1).

The host team had a 41-29 edge in shots but couldn't solve Schubert, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound sophomore from Barrie, Ont.. He was solid throughout and improved to 6-7 on a ninth-place squad that owns a 6-11-0 record.

Christopher Paquette gave the Paladins a jump start just 39 seconds after the opening faceoff when his quick wrist shot fooled freshman netminder Emanuel Vella, whose record dropped to 1-3.

Keanu Yamamoto evened the score at 1-1 for McGill when he connected with his sixth of the season at 12:26 of the middle period.

However, RMC regained the lead at 2-1 some five minutes later when defenceman Noah Rowe wired a laser beam on a power-play, which proved to be the game-winner at 17:51 of the second period.

It ended an impressive run of 25 consecutive shorthanded situations erased by the McGill PK unit, which currently ranks second of 30 OUA teams with an 88.7 per cent success rate. Ottawa leads all teams at 91.2 efficiency.

RMC kind of put the game out of reach midway through the final period when Rowe set up Mitchell Larabie to make it 3-1 at 10:40.

McGill pulled the goalie in the dying moments and it almost came back to haunt them when the RMC goalie fired a long bomb up the middle, which eventually hit the goal-post at the other end with 84 seconds remaining. The ensuing icing call led to McGill scoring with the extra attacker when Christophe Lalonde finally beat Schubert at 19:36. It was his fifth of the season and 55th career marker but proved to be too little, too late.

McGill went 0-for-4 on the power-play, while RMC was 1-for 4.

It was the second straight victory for the Paladins, whose celebration was almost on a par with winning their annual high-stakes game against the U.S. Army team from Westpoint, N.Y.  RMC also stole a win from second-place UQTR (3-2) in the season opener. Their other conquests have come at the expense of Nipissing twice (5-2, 5-2), York (4-3) and Laurentian (6-4).

The December exam break is now the priority and McGill will be off until Dec. 29, when they head down to Yale in New Haven, Conn., for a non-conference confrontation in a 4 p.m. start. 

RMC will resume league play, looking to extend their win streak with back-to-back games at Nipissing, Jan. 3-4. With 11 games remaining on their schedule, the Paladins are three victories shy of their school record (9-16-3), which they achieved in 2007-08 under the guidance of then bench boss Kelly Nobes, his first head coaching stint after graduating from McGill.

Nobes, who passed away in early September, was there in spirit at the McGill post-game Parents Night buffet in the Alumni Lounge. Dominic Talbot-Tassi, one of the team's alternate captains, designed a cake (with assistance from his girlfriend) in the shape of the McGill leather bomber jacket often worn by Nobes behind the McGill bench. The post-game reception drew a large crowd of the player's parents and families, with the long-distance award going to the mother and father of Keanu Yamamoto, who made the lengthy 3,700km trek in from Spokane, Wash., for the third straight year.

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OUA STANDINGS & STATS

OUA SCOREBOARD