MONTREAL -- Marie-Pier Dubé scored at 6:56 of double overtime as the No.2 Montreal Carabins rallied for a 3-2 win over sixth-ranked McGill to open the best-of-three RSEQ women's hockey league championship series, Thursday, at Arena CEPSUM.

The Martlets now face a must-win situation in Game 2 at McConnell Arena on Saturday at 3 p.m. if they want to force a rubber match on Sunday afternoon back at CEPSUM at 4 p.m.

The top-seeded Carabins, who have yet to lose on home ice this season in 12 outings, outshot their guests 36-32 and improved to 4-2 on the season versus McGill and 28-48 in 76 head-to-head meetings overall. Four of the last 12 meetings have gone into double overtime, with UdeM winning three of those.
 
McGill led 2-1 with six minutes left in regulation but Carabins forward Alexandra Labelle capitalized on a power-play at 13:59 to forced overtime. A 10-minute 4-on-4 period ensued and after an intermission to resurface the ice, Dube secured the win for the Carabins at 6:56 of the second extra period. She entered the Martlets blueline on what appeared to be a harmless 1-on-2 up the middle but manage to split the defence and shot the puck through goaltender Tricia Deguire's legs just as the two-time all-star goalie had made a lunging move to poke-check the puck.

"While the girls are extremely disappointed we didn't win, when I look at the process of how we played tonight I thought we were good," said Martlet head coach Peter Smith. "We had a bit of a lapse in the second period but we had a strong first and an excellent third. Our overtime performance was great, although I didn't think we shot the puck enough."

After a scoreless first period, Jessika Boulanger netted a power-play goal at 15:56 of the middle stanza, giving the Carabins a 1-0 lead
 
It took less than four minutes for McGill to respond as Jade Downie-Landry of St. Jean, Que., connected at 19:45 to tie the game at 1-1. The junior centre continues to lead the RSEQ playoff scoring race with a 2-5-7 record in three postseason contests.
 
Lauren Bowman of Calgary, Alb., found the back of the net at 9:01 of the final stanza, to put McGill ahead 2-1.  It was her first marker of the season -- in 31 games overall --  and just her seventh goal in 107 career contests with the Martlets. 
 
"There were lots of strong things tonight and I particularly liked Tricia's game, she was terrific, she played big and aggressive," said Smith of his 5-foot-8 netminder from Sherbrooke, who stopped 33 of 36 shots in a losing cause.

At the other end of the ice, Carabins netminder Aube Racine made 30 saves on 32 shots for the win.

McGill went 0-for-3 on the power-play, while the Carabins were 2-for-3.
 
"We haven't given up two PP goals in one game all year and they scored both of them at the end of the kill, just when we thought we had gotten out of it," lamented Smith.  "Our third power-play opportunity was really good, with some great looks but we just didn't get the puck in the back of the net. We have a tendency to get a little too pretty on it but again it's hard to be critical of the way we played tonight."
 
"The girls were very disappointed after the game was over but the beauty is we get to play again on Saturday, I think we can play marginally better and that's a good thing."
 
SCORING SUMMARY

RSEQ PLAYOFF SCORING LEADERS