Rams sweep Varsity Blues
The Ryerson Rams men's hockey team advanced to the second round of the OUA playoffs Thursday night by defeating the Toronto Varsity Blues 3-1 in front of a raucous crowd at George Bell Arena.
The victory gave the Rams an improbable two-game sweep over the third-seeded Varsity Blues in the OUA East quarter-finals, and marked Ryerson's first playoff series win since 2002.
The night hardly started on a positive note for Ryerson, however, as two-thirds of the Rams' top offensive line would be out of the game two minutes into the first period. After Alexei Dostoinov was a late scratch for the home side, Matt Schmermund received a game misconduct for a hit from behind just over a minute in. Without their leading scorer and top play making center in the line-up, the Rams would look to some of their role players to play a bigger part in the team's most important game of the season.
Despite the early setbacks, the Rams rode a wave of fan support to take an early 1-0 lead. After Toronto's Byron Elliot took a hooking penalty at the 10 minute mark, Ryerson's Kevin Day capitalized on the power play, tipping home a Marcus Booth slap pass to give the Rams an early advantage. Elliot would get his revenge later in the period, however, wiring home a shorthanded slapshot to tie the game at one at 15:42 of the first period.
Although Ryerson would go on to outshoot Toronto 19-6 in a wide open second, the game would remain deadlocked at one throughout the middle frame. While Toronto had several chances early, it would be the Rams who got the crowd worked up with a flurry of opportunities late in the period. And after sitting on the edge of their seats for most of the second, Ryerson's fans finally got something to cheer about early into the third.
Just over two minutes into the final frame, Ryerson's Andrew Buck managed to corral a loose puck at the side of the Toronto goal before backhanding it home to give the Rams a 2-1 lead. Brent Small made it 3-1 just over two minutes later when he banged home a Stewart D'Eall snapshot that trickled through Toronto's Andrew Martin into the blue paint.
From there, Ryerson threw up a defensive wall, controlling the puck low in Toronto's end, and effectively killing the clock to seal their first-ever playoff series win against their cross-town rivals.
Ryerson outshot Toronto 42-30 in game two, and went 1-for-4 with the man advantage while holding Toronto off the board in four power plays of their own. Paul Gibson notched his second-straight playoff win by making 29 saves for Ryerson, while Martin took the loss after stopping 39 shots for Toronto.
After watching his team escape a nervous second period to claim the win in a strong third, Ryerson head coach Graham Wise said his team's focus had a lot to do with the Rams' moving on.
"When you get a group of guys that are determined to win, they're going to go out and make sure they play mistake-free hockey," he said. "We saw that here tonight, and our players deserve a lot of credit."
Wise also gave credit to his team for stepping up in the absence of two of their offensive leaders.
"In my opinion, that's what makes a great team," he said. "We only worried about the guys that were in the line-up, and several guys came up with big games for us."
With the win, Ryerson will advance to the OUA Eastern Conference semi-finals next week, and will likely face a top-seeded team such as McGill or UQTR. The Rams will await their next opponent, but are assured of hosting at least one more playoff game this season.
Recap Written by
Scott Nowoselski, Sports Information Assistant
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