Griffins beat Portage, get help to secure first-round playoff bye

Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON — Scoring three goals in the third period to put away the Portage Voyageurs 5-1 in their final game of the regular season, the MacEwan Griffins marched into their locker-room in a jovial mood on Saturday night.

Things got even better after that.

The Griffins settled in to watch the UAlberta-Augustana Vikings trounce the SAIT Trojans 5-1, giving MacEwan second spot in the ACAC standings and the first-round playoff bye that comes with it.

"We knew we had to win this one. We got our business done," said forward Brett Njaa, who led the Griffins with a goal and two assists in the win.

"Now we just put it in their hands and hope something happens," he added before heading into the room to scoreboard watch.

And happen it did. Only losing four times in regulation prior to the final weekend, SAIT gave up four third period goals to lose 4-3 to UAA on Friday before having no answers in a rematch beat-down Saturday.

So MacEwan (21-6-1) and top-seeded NAIT (22-4-2) will get a week off to rest and practice up as SAIT (19-6-3) hosts Concordia (8-19-1) in one ACAC quarter-final, while UAA (18-9-1) and Red Deer (13-11-4) do battle in the other. The Griffins will host the highest remaining seed in the semifinals on the March 10-12 weekend.

"That's awesome – just to finish second have that home-ice advantage in the second round of the playoffs. It makes a huge difference," said Njaa. "We only have to win four games instead of six."

Njaa was a huge reason why the Griffins took care of their own business, crushing Portage 5-1. He assisted on Ryan Benn's game-winner with 3:26 left in the second period, added a helper in the third and later scored an insurance marker to salt the two points away. The second-year forward finishes as MacEwan's leading scorer for the second-straight season with 11 goals and 31 points in 27 games after also notching 31 a year ago.

However, it wasn't all sunshine and roses for the Griffins at the Downtown Community Arena on Saturday night. A minute after Portage's Richard Cameron tied the game 1-1 midway through the second period, head coach Bram Stephen called a timeout and gave an emphatic address to his troops on the bench.

"I don't like to do that often or ever, actually, but you could see the game not going the right way," he said. "I figured if we waited to the intermission, it would be too long.

"We just kind of got away from what we were doing. We were trying to go from Step A to Step C and we forgot about B in all areas of the ice. That turns into problems if we keep doing it like that."

Added Njaa: "I think we were getting a little too lackadaisical in all three zones. We were starting to sit back too much and letting them take the play to us, which we should never let that team do to us. We kind of just got our wits about us and went back at it. It obviously paid off getting that timeout. It was a really good call."

After the wakeup call, MacEwan came out as if they were fired out of a cannon. Daniel Wray was robbed by Portage goalie Nathan Warren with 6:44 left, but the Griffins were unperturbed. They kept rolling and were rewarded before the period was done when Benn scored from an impossible angle off a defender and in.

"The wins are nice," said Stephen, whose team also beat Portage 4-2 on Friday in Lac La Biche. "I liked our process, to be honest. We weren't great in the second periods of both games, but it was a lot better than it could have been considering the situation."

Ryan Baskerville's goal in the first minute of the third period set the tone for MacEwan the rest of the way – a period that was mostly played in Portage's end. Njaa scored the Griffins' fourth tally on a one-timed slapshot from the high slot on a two-man advantage at 12:58.

"Our power play was pretty good tonight," said Njaa of a unit that went 4-for-6. "We were getting lots of good looks off of it and making the most of them and putting them in, too, so that was good."

MacEwan's other tallies were by their two graduating seniors – Blake Grainger and Shawn Proulx – both feted before their final regular season home game.

Goalie Chris Wray kept his team in it early, finishing with 23 saves. Warren made 55 stops for the Voyageurs, who will finish last in the ACAC at 4-22-2.

"You've got to give Portage a lot of credit," said Stephen. "Jim Knight came in there (as interim head coach) the last three weeks and he did a hell of a job with them. They played two hard games. I've got a lot of respect for them in that way."