Brad Gager scored at 3:05 of overtime to lift the Concordia Stingers to a 6-5 victory over the No. 5-ranked UQTR Patriotes in university hockey action at the Ed Meagher Arena in Montreal on Friday night.
It was Gager’s second goal of the game. He also scored at 15:46 of the second period to tie the game and force the overtime period. The late game heroics gave the Stingers an important victory, cementing home-ice advantage in the first round of the OUA East playoffs.
Concordia and the Carletons Ravens will play a best-of-three series, beginning Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Ed Meagher Arena. Game 2 will be in Ottawa and Game 3, if necessary, is back at Concordia on Sunday at 4 p.m.
The Stingers had to dig deep to comeback from a rough start. UQTR had established a 4-1 lead early in the second period on goals from Eric Beaudin, Samuel Beland, Jean-Sebastien Breton and Etienne Bellavance. Cory McGillis had the lone Concordia marker.
Scrapping back in the second frame, the Stingers had goals from Michael Blundon, Mike Baslyk and Nicolas D’Aoust to tie the game at 4-4.
Beaudin put his team ahead again at 15:28 of the second period. Gager scored his first goals 18 seconds later. There was no scoring in the third period.
Concordia’s Maxime Joyal picks up the victory. He turned away 31 of 36 shots. Jean-Christophe Blanchard and Michel Dupont split the goaltending duties for UQTR. Dupont was tagged with the loss.
