Vincent Scott battles for possession with Manitoba's Sam Borschowa on Friday night (James Maclennan photo).
Vincent Scott battles for possession with Manitoba's Sam Borschowa on Friday night (James Maclennan photo).
January 24, 2026

Strong start nets Griffins a point in OT loss to Manitoba that draws them level with Alberta for second

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Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – With the rate the lamp was being lit in the opening period, it seemed we were in for a wild one at the Downtown Community Arena.

Instead, it turned into a game of inches, fought on discipline, grit and details after the visiting Manitoba Bisons rallied back from a 3-1 first period deficit to force overtime against the MacEwan Griffins men's hockey team.

Taking advantage of a 4-on-3 powerplay, Dawson Pasternak unleashed a shot from the left dot that gave off shades of David Pastrnak. It whistled under the bar and past Zac Onyskiw to lift the Bisons to a 4-3 victory.

"Any time you leave it up to chance in overtime with the three-on-three format, it's anybody's game," said Griffins head coach Zack Dailey. "They have some extremely skilled players. Unfortunate result, but I did like our effort and game for a lot of the game."

With the result, the Griffins picked up a point and improved to 9-8-4, which ties them with cross-town rival Alberta for second place in Canada West's West Division after the Golden Bears lost 7-4 at Saskatchewan.

The battle for second – and the home playoff series that comes with it – may just come down to the wire as the two teams will meet in a home-and-home series on the final weekend of the regular season Feb. 13-14.

"We can only control what we can control, which is playing good hockey," said Dailey. "We don't want to wait until the final weekend to try and pass them. We want to be winning games down the stretch and play the right way.

"I think I've said it a nauseatingly amount (of times), but we're working day to day, trying to string together good days. When it comes down and when we're at the end, hopefully when we lift our heads up we're where we want to be."

Manitoba showed moments of how hungry they are as they're desperately trying to stay alive in a tough East Division where their 9-10-2 record has them 12 points behind Mount Royal (15-6-2) for a playoff spot. Unfortunately for them, they didn't gain any ground as both MRU and Saskatchewan (15-4-2) won.

The first period on Friday belonged to the Griffins, who opened the scoring just 5:30 into the contest when Caden Cabana caught up to Vincent Scott's stretch pass and showed off a filthy set of mitts, deking out goaltender Braden Holt.

"Gaully (Myles Gauld) just picked it up on the wing and made a poised play to Vinny and Vinny just shot it up there," described Cabana, who was noticeable all night with a game-high six shots on goal. "I got lucky enough that it bounced right in front of me and just fortunate to score on that breakaway for us."

Just 1:29 later, the Bisons responded when Caden Zaplitny's low shot was kicked away by Onyskiw … right to the tape of Eric Alarie, who wired in a sharp angle blast from the left.

But just, you guessed it, 1:29 after that, the Griffins regained the lead on Brody Tallman's bar-down snipe that came complete with a stick twirl in celebration.

Captain Sam Simard then walked all the way in and beat Holt to put MacEwan up 3-1 just 1:03 after that for three Griffins goals in a span of four minutes.

Hard to believe, but that was it for MacEwan's offence in the game as Holt shut the door after that, finishing with 25 saves on 28 shots. Onyskiw stopped 12 of 16 for MacEwan.

Lucas Brennan got the Bisons within one on a second period powerplay goal off a nice feed from Pasternak before Michael King tied the game early in the third after Andrew Boucher picked off an errant pass behind MacEwan's net and fed him out front for a one-timer.

"They were good off the start," said Dailey of his team. "We got away from our plan in the second period. They're a good team, they're going to push back. Got back to our game in the third period. Didn't think we had enough traffic in front of their net, even though we did have some scoring chances."

That will be key in tomorrow's rematch (2 p.m., Downtown Community Arena, Canada West TV).

"We've just got to bear down and get more traffic in front of him," said Cabana.

"Just keep up the aggressive game, get more traffic in front of the net and just stay in the O-zone more and play heavy tomorrow."