Reds complete perfect regular season

FREDERICTON, NB—The UNB REDS completed a perfect Atlantic University Sport regular season with a 9-1 win, Saturday, over the UPEI Panthers.

The game was played before a capacity crowd of 3374 at UNB's Aitken Centre. 

The U SPORTS No. 1 ranked REDS, who finish the regular season with 30 wins in 30 games, are the first U SPORTS team to record a perfect season since the Western Mustangs went 24-0 in 2002-03 and the ninth team to record a perfect regular season in Canadian men's university hockey history. 

"It's pretty special," said REDS' captain Jason Willms (Kitchener, ON). "Obviously, there's a lot of work that goes into that and guys come to UNB not for regular season accomplishments but to win a national title and we've got a long road ahead and it's just going to get harder from here, but it's important to take it all in and, obviously, it's a pretty big accomplishment to get to this point." 

The home team opened the scoring at 6:10 of the first period on a powerplay goal by Kale McCallum (Rothesay, NB). 

Isaac Nurse (Hamilton, ON) and Michael Petizian (Mississauga, ON) added goals later in the opening frame. 

The Panthers' lone goal came just 1:16 into the second period when Josh Currie (Pickering, ON) beat REDS' goalie Samuel Richard (Ste. Catherine, QC). 

The REDS responded with four unanswered goals and chased UPEI starting goaltender Jakob Robillard (Rockland, ON) from the net. Joe Ranger (Carp, PE) took over and fared only slightly better. 

The REDS led 6-1 after two periods and added three more in the third for the 9-1 win. 

"We got off to a good start," said Willms. "We're a good team when we get that first one and we carried that momentum into the second period, the second period has kind of been a big period for us to get some separation over our opponent and we were able to feed off that energy and have a complete 60-minute effort." 

Austen Keating (Guelph, ON) scored three goals to lead the REDS and win the AUS scoring title. 

"When we're working hard and outworking the opponent, that's when we're successful," said Keating, named Tim Horton's Player of the Game. "It was a great game all around and something to be proud of." 

Keating finished the season with 50 points, 23 goals and 27 assists, and the REDS had six players among the top ten scorers in the AUS. 

"Any time you have success as a team, usually you're going to have career-best seasons, and if you go through our roster, I think almost every player has had a career-best season, performance-wise," said REDS' head coach Gardiner MacDougall. "There's a lot of love in this group and Keats is one of the leaders. His work ethic is extraordinary. He does the process really well. He plays both special teams and is probably a really underrated player in our league and to get that is a great accomplishment for him." 

Willms, Brady Gilmour (Grafton, ON), and Adam McCormick (Waterville, NB) also scored for UNB. 

Richard made 17 saves on 18 shots in the UNB net for his 16th win of the season. 

Finishing atop the AUS standings, the REDS earn a first-round bye in the AUS playoffs and will host game one of their conference semi-final series on Friday, February 23rd, at 7:00pm against a to be determined opponent. 

The Panthers finish the season 12-14-1-3 (W-L-OTL-SOL) and in fifth place. They'll face the Saint Mary's Huskies in the conference quarter-finals. 

"When you do something that re-writes history, it's incredible, but having said that, when we came together on September 1st this wasn't the end goal, it's just another step in our journey," said Keating. "We're proud of what we've done in this regular season but starting Monday it is a full re-set and we're going to be ready to go."

RECAP BY: Andy Campbell, UNB Athletics / PHOTOS BY: James West, for UNB Athletics