WATERLOO, ONT – Maxime Pellerin scored twice and Stephane Huard tallied just 47 seconds into sudden-death overtime as No. 7 ranked McGill rallied for a 4-3 victory over Waterloo in OUA men's hockey at the Columbia Ice Field Arena, Friday.
 
The result marked McGill's second consecutive OT victory at Waterloo, a few days shy of last year's date, where they came away with a 6-5 decision on Nov. 18, 2024. It also extended McGill's win streak over the Warriors to six since the last Waterloo victory in 2015 and McGill evened its lifetime record against the Warriors to 18-18-3 dating back to the inaugural meeting in 1964.
 
"We came off a good week of practice and carried that into the game today," said McGill head coach Daid Urquhart. "We started off really well, came in with a lot of energy and generated a lot of scoring chances but their goalie played well to keep it scoreless."

After the first intermission, the Redbirds jumped into a two-goal lead in the second on goals by rookies Alexis Morin and the high-scoring Pellerin, only watch in horror as Waterloo rebounded for a late second period goal by Owen Wilson and two more in the first four minutes of the third period – by Sam McKinney and Tate Popple – to take a 3-2 lead.
 
"At that point, we maybe took the foot off the gas for a few minutes and it cost us," Urquhart noted. "We responded well, however, stuck with it and converted a power-play to tie the game."

Huard, a feisty 5-foot-8, 176-pound sophomore forward, earned an assist on Pellerin's second power-play goal of the soiree, which knotted the score at 3-3 with 8:36 remaining to force overtime. The 22-year-old from Blainville, Que., then rammed home his own rebound after teammate Zach Gallant won the second overtime faceoff, deep in the Waterloo zone. Huard now has four goals and eight points in only six games.
 
Pellerin is a 21-year-old management freshman from Victoriaville, Que., where he played five seasons for the QMJHL's Tigres. The six-foot, 183-pound forward now leads the team in scoring with a 5-7-12 record in 11 contests.
 
McGill had a 46-29 edge in shots as netminder Fabio Iacobo, a junior from St. Leonard, Que., collected the victory. Waterloo's Dan Murphy made 42 saves in a losing cause.
 
"Overall, it was a good game for our special teams unit," Urquhart said. "That's an area where we have the players to make a difference and that is (critical) in a one-goal game like this."

Penalties played a major factor, with McGill going 3-for-6 on the power-play and limiting Waterloo to one PP goal in five chances. The Warriors had entered the game with the best power-play success rate in the league and are now tied with Concordia at 28.3 per cent. Only a couple of weeks ago, McGill's PP unit was ranked second-to-last in the 19-team OUA league. It is now ranked as the fifth-best and functioning at 22.6 per cent.
 
McGill, which sits sixth in the combative nine-team OUA East, has a 6-5-0 record, including an unblemished 4-0 against OUA West teams. The Redbirds will make a 130-kilometre bus ride to St. Catharines, where they will confront the Brock Badgers (6-4-2) in a 2 p.m. faceoff on Saturday at Canada Games Park. Waterloo, which dropped to 4-6-2, is off until Nov. 23, when they host Ottawa (7-5-0).
 
REDBIRDS RAP: McGill assistant coach Jocelyn Perreault, a partner at the Montreal-based law firm of McCarthey-Tetrault, had a busy day that started with a morning court case before a judge. He then caught an afternoon flight to Toronto, a connecting flight to Windsor and an UBER ride to the rink in Thorold, to arrive just in time for the pre-game warmup..A ferocious forward nicknamed "Tiger" during his playing days at McGill from 1999 to 2004, he joined the coaching staff this season... This McGill-Waterloo matchup marked a fitting anniversary of the first rendezvous between these teams 60 years ago. In attendance was McGill grad John D. Tennant (BCom '63), the team MVP from that 1963-64 season, who was invited by head coach David Urquhart to read the starting lineup in the dressing room before the opening faceoff. Tennant was the first McGill goaltender to wear a mask and one of three from the Tennant family to play goal for McGill.  In fact, the Tennant name is a legacy family at McGill, dating back to his maternal grandfather, George Everett Learmonth, a Montrealer, who earned a medical degree in 1901. John's uncle David Tennant was a star goaltender who served as captain of the varsity hockey team and graduated with an engineering degree in 1938. John's late brother Jim Tennant was also a goalie for McGill in the 1960s and his cousin Graeme Tennant also played at McGill in the 1968-69 season. Graeme's brother Robert N.C. Tennant is a McGill benefactor who established a scholarship in 2019 for the University's Schulich School of Music.

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SOURCE
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-983-7012 (Tel.)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca