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| Last updated at 12:36 AM on 24/11/08 |
Men’s hockey Panthers keep first place in sights 
STEPHEN BRUN
The Guardian
The UPEI Panthers, paced by Justin Donati’s four-goal performance, kept first place in the Atlantic University Sport conference within reach Saturday night with a 6-3 win over the Dalhousie Tigers at MacLauchlan Arena.
With the win, the Panthers (8-4-2) sit in a tie for second place with Saint Mary’s (9-4-0), two points behind Moncton (9-2-2).
UPEI?and Saint Mary’s will play Thursday night in Charlottetown.
Saturday’s win was the second straight for UPEI, which edged Acadia at home Friday night.
Saturday, after trading goals in the first period, the Panthers took a 2-1 lead into the locker room despite pummeling Dalhousie goaltender Chris Wall in shots on goal by a 20-5 margin.
UPEI’s potent power play came through for them in the first, said head coach Dylan Taylor.
“If you want to win games and compete in this league, you’ve got to capitalize on the power play,” said Taylor. “We have to continue to always work, work, work on the power play and when you do that, you’re skills have an opportunity to come out.”
Donati opened the scoring for the Panthers just over four minutes in, crashing the net for the power-play goal.
Dalhousie struck back less than 30 seconds later with a Vince Scott slapshot from the face-off circle in the UPEI end.
But Donati set up one if his linemates on the power play again close to the midway mark of the first, sliding a pass to Cory Vitarelli who tipped it into a wide-open cage.
The Panthers stretched their lead three minutes into the second with Jordan Knox capitalizing on a rebound on the doorstep.
Donati, who sits in second place overall among the conference’s point-getters with 26, revealed the secret of his success this season.
“Good linemates. Jordan Knox, and now with the addition of Cory Vitarelli, it’s been awesome playing with both of them and hopefully we can keep it rolling,” he said. “We wanted to play our game and not take these guys too lightly. When you do that’s when they score a few quick ones on you.
“We don’t want to panic when we’re out there and take the shots when they’re given to us and just make good smart passes.”
UPEI allowed the Tigers back into the game in the period, as Kenzie Sheppard made it 3-2 with his marker just 30 seconds later.
But Panthers goalie Jhase Sniderman was up to the task, coming up with some big saves to keep the Tigers from tying the game.
“I thought in the first period we played well, but in the second period we got away from (the game plan) and our goaltender gave us a chance,” said Taylor. “In the third period we got down to basics, played simple hockey and we were able to generate offence from that.”
Things were tight until the six-minute mark of the third period where Donati notched another power-play goal off a Vitarelli shot.
Donati lit the lamp again three minutes later on a great set-up from Knox to make it 5-2 for UPEI.
Dal’s Tyler Dyck brought his team within two with four minutes left after picking off a pass shorthanded and streaking in for the breakaway goal.
That was as close as the Tigers would get though, and Donati sealed the deal with an empty-net goal with under a minute to play.
“We had a bit of a stumble last Saturday (a 705 loss to St. Thomas) and we challenged this group extremely hard last week,” said Taylor. “Our expectations are higher than that. It’s just about finding an identity as a team. If I take anything from this weekend it’s that there’s still a lot of work to do. There’s lots of positives, but we’re going to continue to push.”
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24/11/08
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