One win, one loss
The Acadia Axemen were unable to complete what would have been an epic comeback in their home opener Oct. 6 against the STFX X-men, losing 5-4 in a shootout, but rallied back the following night for a 5-3 win.
The X-men dominated the first period, scoring four unanswered goals - three of them on the manadvantage - to take a 4-0 lead.
The Axemen pulled goaltender Robert Steeves at the end of the first and put rookie Dawson Carty in nets to start the second.
Acadia responded with four goals of its own in the second, including two power-play markers to tie the game heading into the third. Goal scorers were rookie forward Rodney Southam, who scored the first goal of his U SPORTS career, Marc Mcnulty, Kyle Farrell and Liam Maaskant.
Despite multiple chances on both sides, neither team was able to capitalize, so the game headed into a five-minute overtime that remained scoreless, prompting a shoot-out.
The X-men scored twice in the shootout for the win.
Before getting the hook, Axemen goaltender Robert Steeves turned aside 12 of 16 shots, while rookie goalie Dawson Carty stopped all 22 shots he faced prior to the shootout. Their X-men counterpart, Chase Marchand turned aside 33 of 37 shots, while stopping both shooters in the shootout.
While the Axemen only earned a point from the overtime shootout loss, Farrell was positive about the take-aways from the game.
“I love the character we showed in the second period. To be down 4-0, a lot of people probably wrote us off after the first, but we were alright,” Farrell said. “We have an experienced group in the room and we knew we were alright and came out in the second and scratched and clawed our way back. A positive we can take out of it is to being down 4-0 and getting a point out of it is a positive for sure.”
Acadia came back the following night to ruin Dalhousie’s home opener Oct. 7 win a 5-3 win. Acadia’s scoring was led by Farrell, who had two shorthanded markers, Mcnulty, Stephen Harper and Chance Braid.
The next home game for the Axemen is against the Tigers on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m.