(Winnipeg, MB) - The Manitoba Bisons clawed back from a 4-1 deficit, only to fall short in their 4-3 loss to the Mount Royal Cougars. Parker Malchuk recorded two assists in the Bison's loss on Friday night.
The Cougars wasted no time getting started against the Herd as Robert Anhorn found himself behind the net picking up a loose puck and deflecting it in to score the opening goal off a bounce.
Mount Royal remained steady over the following minutes, piling on eight unanswered shots on goal and giving Bisons goalie Braden Holt a steady first period of action. After careful passing and strong pressure in Manitoba's zone, Connor Bouchard found himself free of defenders with Kyle Walker feeding him the cross-crease pass to tap in the insurance marker.
In the dying seconds of the first period, Mount Royal would find themselves on an offensive zone rush. Clay Hanus and Jayden Wiens got on the rush, Hanus had the puck on his stick and chose to shoot rather than pass, beating Holt high glove side to add the third tally to the Cougars' lead in the first.
The Bisons showed up in a big way in their second power play opportunity of the game in the second period, cutting Mount Royal's deficit down to two goals.
Captain Jonny Hooker found himself in front of the net while Parker Malchuk was floating on the perimeter when Skyler Bruce made a strong tape-to-tape pass and allowed Hooker to rifle the shot past Shane Farkas which Hooker tipped in.
After some back-and-forth action, Mount Royal would answer back with their fourth goal of the game after Robbie Fromm-Delorne had the puck on his stick with Josh Tarzwell on a two-on-one break. Fromm-Delorme passed the puck to Tarzwell who buried the puck low blocker side to extend Mount Royals' lead.
In a great positioning battle, Grady Lane would park himself in front of Mount Royal's net where Codey Behun fed him the puck. This allowed him to display his strength and whack away at the rebounds Lane created for himself to get Manitoba's second goal of the night with less than two minutes to go in the second.
Adding to the excitement in the game, Hayden Ostir would battle to keep the puck in the Cougars zone and after a passing cycle, Ostir sent a rocket past the Cougars' netminder to bring Manitoba within one goal four minutes into the third.
While Manitoba got a crucial power play chance with 55 seconds left in the game, they were unable to complete the comeback as the Cougars successfully defended their net and took the first game of the two-game weekend set.
"I really don't like the way we started. We spotted them three goals, really in the first period. I don't like that at all, and then in the second period and in the third period, I thought we did some better things, but there were a couple things that we did that didn't sit well with me," said Bisons head coach Gordon Burnett.
"We turned the puck over too much into the blue line. That'll hurt you. We need to play a more disciplined game and we need to play a full 60 minutes. I guess we got what we deserve tonight and now can we recover and be ready for two o'clock tomorrow? At times, we played a really good hockey game. We got away from what we needed to do, and that costed us."
Manitoba and Mount Royal are back at it for a 2:00 pm CST puck drop on Saturday, November 16th.
