MONTREAL – Six different players scored as McGill opened its playoff run with a wild 6-4 victory over archrival Concordia in Game 1 of an OUA East semifinal before about 500 at McConnell Arena, Wednesday.
 
This is the 17th playoff series meeting between these crosstown rivals and the Redbirds can avenge last-year's semifinal series sweep to the Stingers by winning Game 2 of this best-of-three affair with a victory at the Ed Meagher Arena, Saturday at 7 p.m. If a rubber match is needed, it will be back at McConnell on Sunday at 7 p.m.
 
The result was McGill's eighth straight win, dating back to the regular season, and 13th consecutive conquest on home ice. It was also the team's highest scoring playoff game since an 8-2 victory in Ottawa on Feb. 17, 2023 to eliminate the Gee-Gees in the quarter-final round.
 
After a 10-day bye through the first round of the playoffs, the top-seeded Redbirds, winners of the OUA East pennant,  looked somewhat rusty to start, especially so compared to the fifth-seeded Stingers, who had swept fourth-place Queen's in the quarter-final round.
 
"After a long time off, it was important to just get our feet (moving) under us at the beginning of the game," said veteran defenceman Scott Walford, on the McGill Streaming Network's post-game show. "Our goal since the start of the year has been to win the Corey Cup, the Queen's Cup and the Nationals. So if we want to get to the Queen's Cup, we're going to have to take it away from a team who had a chance to play for it last year… The past week was all about focusing on us and waiting to see who we would play. Once we found out it was Concordia, we knew it was going to be a challenge but we accepted that. We wanted to come back and prove ourselves after last year and how the season ended. Obviously this series is not over. There's still a lot of hockey to be played. They're a good team and we have to keep the same mentality heading into Game 2."
 
McGill was outshot 32-26 in the game, including an 11-3 margin in the opening period. Despite a limited number of shots early on, the Redbirds scored first when Caiden Daley, a junior from Winnipeg, connected for his second goal of the season and his first-ever in the playoffs.
 
"We've played together and grown over my three years here… and there's a lot of trust and love in that room," Walford said. "When guys are scoring, we're so happy for them. It's kind of an incentive for everyone to step up and do their part. 'Dales' had a huge goal today and you should've seen the bench, it was probably one of the happiest benches (this season). So whoever is scoring, we're happy and I think that's a big part of why we're so deep this year."
 
McGill, however, headed into the first intermission deadlocked at 1-1 after Isiah Campbell scored his first of two for the Stingers.
 
The second period was like a famous line from an old Monty Python sketch… 'and now for something completely different'. McGill dominated the shots by a 15-6 margin and exploded for four goals – by William Rouleau, Xavier Fortin, Zach Gallant and Brandon Frattaroli – to take a commanding 5-2 lead into the final period.
 
Concordia yanked starting goaltender Nikolas Hurtubise after McGill's fifth goal on only 11 shots through 31 minutes and 50 seconds of playing time.
 
The Stingers somehow recovered and gave McGill a scare in the final period, by narrowing the gap to 5-4 with two goals. The last one occurred with 2:33 remaining in the game, after pulling freshman goalie Jordan Naylor for an extra attacker. He ended up kicking out all 14 shots faced since entering the game at 11:50 of the middle frame.
 
But the resilient Redbirds rebounded with an empty-netter by veteran Eric Uba of Kitchener, Ont., at 19:40.
 
"We kind of mentioned it in the room about last year's playoff loss to Concordia. They were a great team and we had some good battles but we've moved forward and added some key guys (to our lineup)," said Frattarolli, who had two points and now owns a 4-4-8 record in nine career playoff games. "Credit to the Stingers for (bouncing back from a three-goal deficit), they have a lot of firepower up front and some good solid Ds who can move the puck well. It got interesting at the end tonight but we found a way and stuck to it. We had some good blocked shots from our defence back there. Playoff hockey is about finding a way to win."
 
Rounding out the scoring for Concordia was Tyler Hylland and Christopher Inniss.
 
McGill netminder Alexis Shank, a sophomore from Laval, Que., saved 28 of 32 shots to register his first-ever playoff win in two lifetime post-season appearances.
 
The Redbirds continued their excellence on special teams, going 1-for-2 on the power-play and killing off all three penalties. During the regular season, McGill was ranked No.2 in the country in power-play (34.0%) and No. 1 in penalty-killing (89.2%).
 
In the other OUA semifinal series openers, all the home teams won, with UQTR defeating Ottawa 4-1 and Toronto Metropolitan University downing Laurier by an identical score. TMU will host the U SPORTS Final Eight at the Mattamy Athletics Centre in Toronto, Mar. 14-17.
 
REDBIRDS RAP: This was the 205th playoff game in team history for McGill since the first-ever post-season contest in 1910 and the team now has a 107-98 lifetime record in those games, including a 21-16 mark in 37 playoff meetings with Concordia… McGill now owns a 116-114-14 lifetime record against the Stingers since they first crossed paths in 1975… Among the faces in the crowd was a plethora of McGill hockey alumni, including last year's co-captain Jordan-Ty Fournier, who now plays for the ECHL's Allen Americans, where he has a 6-8-14 record with 72 PIMs in 37 games... The ECHL is off this week due to its all-star break… Other McGillians on hand included Teddy Kyres, Chris Churchill-Smith, Charles Gauthier, Jasmin Boutet, L.P. Guindon, Antoine Dufort-Plante, Jocelyn Perreault, Mike Nelson, John Harris and Ken Covo… Also spotted was former assistant coaches Dino Masanotti and Jean St-Pierre, along with last year's video coordinator Chris Pascall.

SCORING SUMMARY

OUA FINAL STANDINGS & STATS
 
McGILL REG. SEASON SCORING LEADERS

HOW McGILL FARES NATIONALLY

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