Men’s Hockey (20-9-1-0) will host Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (19-6-3-3) tomorrow in the Ontario University Athletic best-of-three semifinal matchup.

The second game will be played on the Patriotes’ home ice March 3, and if necessary, the final game will stay in Quebec the following night. The winner will take on the champion of west bracket in the OUA final March 10.

Past success

The travelling Blues won 3-2 over the Far East champs in overtime Nov. 3, before posting a 3-1 home victory over the Jan. 27.

UQTR will have their work cut out for them as they take on a streaking U of T team coming off a sweep of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport’s ninth-ranked team, McGill (15-7-5-1).

The Blues clinched a spot in the semis following a 2-0 victory over those Redmen Saturday at Varsity arena. The win followed a 1-0 victory Wednesday at Montreal.

McGill boasted a top-flight offence, leading the Far East division in regular-season goal production this season with 113 points, without suffering a single shutout loss in league play.

That is, until they came against Blues goalie Matt Grinnell. U of T’s stalwart between the pipes continued his sterling season with 50 saves in the two contests en route to earning his second OUA player of the week award. Grinnell currently leads the nation with 18 victories, 2.20 goals against average, and is in the CIS’s top-three with a .921 save percentage.

Defensive pressure

On Saturday the Blues were able to play strong defensive hockey forcing pressure on the McGill shooters and getting timely shot blocking. Grinnell was his usual outstanding self, stopping all 28 McGill shots to preserve the shutout victory.

“We had a lot of good defensive pressure on their shooters,” Grinnell said. “We wanted to make sure that we had each one covered and that they couldn’t generate anything too threatening.

“Keeping [McGill] off the boards was key to our defence. We were able to provide the pressure to get them a little discouraged and worried.”

The Blues opened the scoring at 17:36 of the second period on a beautiful cross-crease one-timer by Mark Wright. Joe Rand had picked up the puck in the neutral zone and burst into the Redmen end along the boards before making the perfect saucer pass to Wright, who completed the one-timer by the far post.

With a 1-0 lead going into the second intermission, there was question as to whether the Blues would play defensive in the third.

“We didn’t try to play defensive hockey in the third,” coach Darren Lowe said. “We just wanted to keep doing what we were doing and let our offence produce and let our defence do what needed to be done.”

Late in the third McGill pulled their goalie to try and even the score. That ended up being costly as Simon Barg scored an empty-netter with less than a minute left from just out the McGill zone, putting an end to any chance for a McGill comeback.

“When that empty netter went in, I was so relieved,” Grinnell said. “It felt like a huge load was taken off my shoulders. I knew from then on we would be fine.”

The Blues hung on for the last minute, even being down five-on-three with the final fifteen seconds of play.

Walter Palka, parent of Blues winger Greg Palka, said the difference was U of T’s net-minder. “McGill just couldn’t threaten as much as Toronto,” he said. “Grinnell changed the way McGill had to play.”

Powerful play

While the Blues’ physicality was picked up throughout the series, they took McGill within the rules and played disciplined hockey, without taking costly penalties.

Conversely, while improving their power play has been a target for the Blues, they converted when it mattered, getting the only goal of Wednesday’s game, a power play strike late in the third.

“During this series, we showed we can compete and that we were strong,” Lowe said.

The Blues lost both of the two meetings during the regular season against McGill, 3-0 in October and most recently, 11-1 earlier this month.