The Guelph Gryphons have been offensively challenged at times this OUA men's hockey league season, but that certainly wasn't the case Sunday night at the Gryphon Centre.
The Gryphs turned in their biggest offensive display of the season in the third and final game of their West Conference semifinal with the Ryerson Rams as the hosts scored eight times in the second period on their way to an 11-3 victory.
"Nobody expected that kind of final score," Gryphon coach Shawn Camp said. "We honestly believe that we could produce some offence if we kept our feet moving and we've been pretty good here at home. It was a great second period and the floodgates opened and the guys just poured it on."
"Sometimes things just click," Gryphon forward Dylan Gilbert said. "Camper switched up the lines a bit going into tonight and there seemed to be a lot of chemistry out there. We knew where each other was and we were talking. I think that's something that we lacked in Ryerson the other night. We weren't talking too much."
Gilbert collected two goals and three assists for the Gryphs while Kyle Neuber and Seth Swenson also scored twice each. Single goals were added by Reilly O'Connor, Rob De Fulviis, Cody Thompson, Rob Lepine and Thomas Kohler while De Fulviis and Scott Simmonds each had three assists. Lepine had two assists and Thompson, O'Connor, Len Fabbri, Carlos Amestoy and Swenson had one each.
Ryerson received goals from Brandon Devlin, Mitch Theoret and Daniel Clairmont.
Guelph's plan from the start of the game was to run into every skater wearing a Ryerson sweater as often as possible.
"We know that in the third game in a series like this, everybody's tired and everybody's sore," Camp said. "We really felt that if we could force the issue on their (defencemen) we could force some turnovers and maybe create some chances and that seemed to work for us tonight."
"I think that's when we're most successful, when we're getting on pucks fast and we're using our body," Gilbert said. "We've got a big forward group and we like to get engaged in games early and that's how we do it. It was success ful right off the bat tonight. We got on the puck fast and we kept our feet moving and they didn't really have an answer for it."
Despite the 11-goal outburst, the Gryphs aren't concerned that there aren't any goals left in their sticks as they head to the West Conference final against the Western Mustangs, 4-3 winners in overtime in Game 3 of their conference semifinal with the Toronto Varsity Blues Sunday night.
"We're sure that if we continue to work like this and play a team game like we did tonight we'll certainly get our chances, whether or not we finish will always be a different story," Camp said. "It's always done by committee. We don't have any superstars, but we sure have a lot of guys who work hard together."
"We have a pretty mature group in there and we know that if we come back this week and practise hard and get back to our game plan, whoever we play," Gilbert said. "If we stick to our game plan, there aren't a whole lot of teams that can stick with us down low when we're moving our feet and moving the puck and getting to the front of the net."
Western will have home-ice advantage in the conference final. Dates are to be announced.
