MONTREAL – Rookie William Rouleau of St. Basile, Que., scored twice and added an assist as McGill skated to a 6-1 victory over the Nipissing University Lakers in an OUA men's hockey matinee at McConnell Arena, Sunday.
 
It was the third straight victory for the Redbirds, who improved to 4-1-1 and moved into sole possession of second-place in the OUA East, three points behind division-leading UQTR (6-0) and one point ahead of Concordia (4-2). The winless Lakers dropped to 0-5-1.
 
This was the first meeting between these clubs since the Redbirds upset Nipissing 3-1 in an OUA East semifinal last spring and McGill improved its lifetime record to 26-5 against the Lakers, a squad that hails from North Bay, Ont.
 
"The team is starting to show some maturity and learning about what it takes to win in this league," said McGill head coach David Urquhart. "If you look at the two games we played over the weekend, for most of the six periods, we played the right way and when you do that, you wear teams down. The result was only three goals against in two games. If you can keep the opponents to one or two goals a game, you can win a lot of them. The other side is that its nice to score and we have done that as well, especially on the power-play."

McGill, which had a 46-22 edge in shots, was perfect on special teams, going 3-for-3 with the man-advantage and erasing the only shorthanded situation. The Redbirds now lead the 19-team OUA with a potent power-play success rate of 37.0 per cent.

The opening faceoff was delayed 50 minutes as Nipissing had mechanical issues with their bus but it didn't take the host team long to strike with the hot hand of Eric Uba, a sophomore from Kitchener, Ont., who scored his first of two goals at 3:25 of the first period. Seven minutes later, Pascal Valcourt knotted the score at 1-1 but Uba replied with what proved to be the game-winner early in the middle stanza on a power-play, just nine seconds after Nipissing was penalized for a rare interference-from-the-bench infraction.
 
It was the seventh goal in six games for Uba, a product of the Ontario Hockey League, where he played for Guelph and Flint. The six-foot, 200-pound right-winger has now matched his regular season goal total from his freshman year. Uba now ranks second among OUA goal leaders and is tied for third in the nation, one behind Carleton's Parker Aucoin and Alberta's Tyler Preziuso.
 
The winning tally was assisted by Rouleau, who then added back-to-back markers to give McGill a commanding 4-1 lead.  The rookie left-winger now has six points, three of them goals, in six league games.

"It was a good response from Rouleau tonight who didn't play the game that he wanted to have on Friday against Queen's," Urquhart said. "He simplified his game and you could tell that he was focussed on outworking his opponents whenever he was on the ice tonight. His three points were a direct result of that effort."
 
Rounding out the scoring for the home team in the final stanza was Caiden Daley, with his third of the season and defenceman Maxime Blanchard, who now leads all OUA blueliners in goals with four.
 
Scott Walford of Coquitlam, B.C., collected three assists and now leads all OUA rearguards in points with a 1-9-10 record in six contests. He leads the team in ice time and has yet to be penalized. The 23-year-old economics junior, a third-round draft pick by the Montreal Canadiens in 2017, was the Bobby Bell Trophy recipient last season as Team MVP.
 
Sophomore netminder Alexis Shank made 21 saves for the win, evening his record at 2-2. Lakers rookie Zach Roy made 40 saves in a losing cause as his record tumbled to 0-5.
 
Next weekend, McGill (4-1-1) will head to the nation's capital for road games against Carleton (2-2-1) and the Ottawa Gee-Gees (4-3-0) on Nov. 4-5, respectively. Nipissing will look to snap their 0-5-1 winless streak on the road against Queen's on Nov. 4.
 
REDBIRDS RAP: McGill has now scored five or more goals in four of their six OUA games… The unheralded Redbirds now find themselves ranked second among all OUA teams in goals, two behind UQTR, which leads the conference with 29… With only 46 penalty minutes in six games, McGill is the third-least penalized team in the league… Junior William Poirier wore a full cage mask after suffering a cut from an errant stick that went unpenalized in Friday's game against Queen's… Senior co-captain Ty Fournier was a rare lineup scratch as he continues to recover from a nagging injury suffered in the preseason game at Dartmouth on Oct. 12.

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Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (Tel.)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca