X-Men Have Huskies Concerned

Courtesy Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle Herald

It’s win or go home for the defending CIS champion Saint Mary’s Huskies.

The St. Francis Xavier X-Men have the Huskies on the ropes and can send them packing tonight with a win at home in Game 4 of their Atlantic Universities Hockey Conference semifinal.

St. F.X. leads the best-of-five series 2-1. If SMU wins in Antigonish, the rubber match will be played Tuesday night at the Halifax Forum.

Huskies fourth-year forward Cam Fergus said the approach for tonight’s crucial matchup remains the same for the two-time defending league champion.

"For my career here we have had some pretty good success in the playoffs and at nationals, obviously," Fergus said Saturday. "Our approach is the same as it has been all series. We just have to focus on our game and limit our mistakes because St. F.X. has done a great job in capitalizing on our mistakes and that’s been the story of the series."

The X-Men have done a creditable job shutting down the Huskies’ top guns. Fergus, Chris MacKinnon and Colby Pridham were SMU’s leading goal scorers during the regular season with a combined total of 38 goals. In three games against X, only MacKinnon, with one goal, has found the score sheet.

"We haven’t played bad but, at the same time, it’s a results-based sport and we’re not getting the job done," said Fergus, who led the Huskies with 16 goals during the regular season but has two assists in the semifinals.

"Even if you play good sometimes you don’t win. We haven’t had our best games and we’ve had the odd mental lapse in our zone and those type of things can be avoided. We definitely have to kick it up a notch for this game tomorrow.

"We’ll lay our cards on the table and have a solid game and see where we end up after that."

The winner of this series advances to the league final against the UNB Varsity Reds, which eliminated the Acadia Axemen in four games in their semifinal.

With UNB hosting the CIS championship later this month, the other AUS finalist will have their ticket punched to nationals as well. That means either St. F.X. or SMU are nationals-bound.