Close, But No Cigar
Stingers Netminder Karvouniaris Nearly Steals One in Shootout Loss
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Concordia Stingers goaltender Peter Karvouniaris of the men’s hockey team stood on his head Wednesday, stopping 49 of the 51 shots he faced, but the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes prevailed anyway, beating ConU 3-2 in a shootout.
While ConU would have preferred the win, head coach Kevin Figsby was satisfied with his team’s performance. “I thought we played well enough to win tonight’s game,” said Figsby.
The game got off to a promising start for the Stingers; they were first to the score-sheet as centre Charles-Antoine Messier broke the game open with a power-play goal midway through the first period.
Early in the second, however, it was UQTR lighting the lamp, as right-winger Tommy Tremblay tied it up, sneaking one past Karvouniaris off assists from Jean-Sebastien Breton and Alexandre Demers.
The Stingers went up again when defenseman Eric Begin connected on a pass from right-winger Francois Lanctot-Marcotte and Alexis Piette in the middle frame of the period, though.
While the Stingers delivered a full effort, undisciplined hockey got the best of them in the third when Begin took a questionable roughing penalty midway through the period.
This led to UQTR centre Félix Petit netting the tying goal on the ensuing power play, aided with helpers from defenseman Pierre-Luc Lessard and left-winger Olivier Ouellet.
From then on, it was all Karvouniaris as the keeper kept the Stingers in it by stopping every shot he faced, forcing overtime and a shootout.
However the barrage finally game down when centres Demers and Petit beat Karvouniaris one-on-one.
Figsby blamed the loss on part of his special teams specialists being out due to injury. “We were without our number one penalty-killing unit and number one power play unit tonight with Kiefer Orsini and Michael Stinziani both out of the line-up,” said Figsby.
He couldn’t complain about his team’s effort, however. “When you play a game like we did, minus those two players, you have to be pretty excited,” Figsby added.
The Stingers take on the powerful McGill Redmen Sunday afternoon, a team they haven’t beaten since Oct. 10, 2008. The action takes place at 3:00 p.m. at the Ed Meagher arena.
