The Hamilton Bulldogs continue their quest for a berth in the Memorial Cup championship in Regina
REGINA — The fact that Marian Studenic was the one who finally beat Stuart Skinner to give the Hamilton Bulldogs their first win ever at the Memorial Cup is kind of amazing.
Because, just a few hours before the game, the 19-year-old from Slovakia was lying in bed in his hotel room pondering how the heck he was going to play.
Studenic only slept for a couple of hours the night before the 2-1 victory over the Swift Current Broncos that guaranteed his club at least one more game beyond the round robin portion of the tournament.
A fever and a sore throat — the same symptoms that seem to be working their way through the rosters of the four Cup contenders — kept him up.
“I felt so bad,” he said. “The morning was the worst.”
But he decided the bug wouldn’t sideline him.
He wasn’t going to let down his teammates or his coaches or his parents, who had just travelled 21 hours and nearly 7,700 kilometres to watch him face the Western Hockey League champions on Monday night. “I was like, ‘I have to play,’ ” he said.
“If they flew here and I’m going to be sick, it’s like … you know,” he added.
His opportunity came with 2:01 to go in regulation time, when defenceman Ben Gleason found him alone on the goal-line, about 10 feet from the side of the Broncos net. Studenic actually misfired the one-timer, which is probably what allowed him to score on his squad’s 18th shot of the period and 55th of the game.
“I cannot describe it,” his mom, Gabriela, said while waiting to see her son after the final buzzer. “First time!”
“I have never scored a goal when they were here,” Studenic explained.
Until that point in the game, Skinner, who had 54 saves in the loss, had been virtually perfect.
Studenic called it “the best goalie performance I ever saw.”
“We were kind of frustrated, but we believed we would score because there were so many shots,” the six-foot-one, 170pound New Jersey Devils prospect added.
“In the third period, we were nonstop in the O-zone. It was wild, but we deserved it. We
played good. It was very different from the first game.”
The win, which came on the heels of a lacklustre 3-2 loss to the host Regina Pats in the tournament opener Friday, had a dramatic effect on Hamilton’s standing in the competition. Now, it will get no less than a tiebreak game and, in the case of a win over Acadie-Bathurst in its last round robin contest Tuesday
(visit e2e.thespec.com for the result), could even earn a buy to Sunday’s final.
Studenic said the key was to go into it with the same game plan. That is, keep it simple, win 50/50 battles and create traffic in front of the net — something they struggled with Monday.
The Titan were the only club that got out to a 2-0 start in the competition, and as far as head
coach John Gruden was concerned, the biggest challenge for his club.
“This is going to be a tough game,” he said before puck drop.
Gruden planned to stick with the same combinations for the matchup. He and his coaching staff overhauled their lineup after the team’s loss to the Pats, to boost speed and physicality.
Against the Broncos, the trio of Nick Caamano, Robert Thomas and Entwistle, along with blueliners Justin Lemcke and Riley Stillman, were tasked with shutting down Glenn Gawdin and Aleksi Heponiemi, who combined for a ridiculous 243 points this campaign. And they were perfect, rendering the duo pointless and holding it to four shots.
The Broncos put just 22 pucks on net altogether, including 11 in the middle frame.
The assignment could have been worse. Tyler Steenbergen, the 102-point scorer who usually rounds out Swift Current’s top line, didn’t play Monday — he was injured when he collided with Acadie-Bathurst captain Jeffrey Truchon-Viel in his team’s tournament opener.
In the wake of the game, Gruden praised Entwistle, the other Bulldogs scorer, and Caamano,
saying they were outstanding against Gawdin and Heponiemi. In particular, he added, Entwistle’s game has evolved in the playoffs — “like big, power, strong and I knew we needed that against their top line.”
Colby Sissons had the lone Swift Current goal.
Like the Bulldogs, the Broncos started the Memorial Cup with a loss — 4-3 in overtime to the Titan.
Head coach Manny Viveiros called the game “very uncharacteristic”
and said it “wasn’t who the Swift Current Broncos are.”
He felt differently after Monday’s result. “We weren’t working the right way, but the kids were working hard. I can’t fault my kids for that. They tried. They really tried,” he said.
With the loss, the Broncos fell to 0-2, with one round robin game to go. They face the Pats, who are 1-1, Wednesday.