Fergus leads Danton-less Huskies to win over Dalhousie Tigers

By GLENN MacDONALD Sports Reporter, The Chronicle Herald

January 24, 2010

Some of the Forum faithful may have been disappointed not to see Mike Danton in a Saint Mary’s uniform Saturday night.

Instead, they were treated to an all-star performance from Cam Fergus.

The third-year forward scored four goals to lead his Huskies to a 7-3 drubbing of the Dalhousie Tigers in Atlantic Universities Hockey Conference action at the north-end arena.

SMU was coming off a 4-2 victory at St. Francis Xavier on Friday night.

"Our line — (Justin) Munden and (Kyle) Doucet — was creating a lot of chances," said Fergus, whose only other four-goal game came in major junior with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. "They were just finding me tonight. We as a line, and me personally, have been struggling the last few games. But the last two games, we tried to stay simple, get back to basics and simply outwork teams.

"We got the ball rolling at St. F.X. It was a tough battle to get the win. If we hadn’t won tonight, that hard work would have been in vain. We wanted to complete a four-point weekend and we did that."

Much of the talk around campus and in the league the past two weeks has centred on Danton coming to Saint Mary’s and joining the hockey club. The 29-year-old former NHLer was recently released from prison after spending 5 1/2 years behind bars for an attempted murder-for-hire.

Danton didn’t dress Saturday but SMU head coach Trevor Stienburg said "chances are good" that he will make his CIS debut at the Forum Wednesday night against Acadia.

Fergus said the Danton controversy hasn’t been a distraction in the dressing room.

"If anything, it’s made us closer," Fergus said. "We have banded as a group and stuck by our decisions. It’s gut-check time and this is the time we have to jockey for playoff positions. And I feel we are closer as a team now."

Acadia sits two points ahead of SMU for second place in the conference.

Doucet, Colby Pridham and Andrew White also scored for the Huskies (12-5-4), who chased Dal starting netminder Josh Disher from the game after White’s second-period marker at the 3:46 mark. Disher allowed four goals on 22 shots.

Benjamin Breault, Shea Kewin and Devrin Stonehouse answered for the Tigers (7-11-3), who were outshot 47-31.

Dal, which upset Acadia in overtime on Friday night, actually set the tempo early on and was sparked by Breault’s goal 1:01 into the game.

Stienburg, not pleased with his team’s shoddy start, sat his top two lines for nearly four minutes after Breault’s marker.

"They came out pretty hard," Fergus said. "Trevor shortened the bench and played the first-year guys to send a message to the older players and it worked. We straightened out and worked real hard."

Axemen 4, X-Men 0: At Wolfville, Ryan Graham collected two goals and an assist and Spencer Jezegou and Andrew Clark each scored once and added two helpers as Acadia (14-4-2) blanked St. F.X. (9-10-3).

Kris Westblom needed only to make 17 saves for the shutout. His counterpart, X goalie Bryan Gillis, kicked out 41 shots, including 18 in the third period.

Varsity Reds 9, Tommies 4: At Fredericton, Kyle Bailey had four goals and an assist as CIS No. 1 UNB (21-0-0) blasted St. Thomas (7-12-2).

Aigles Bleus 5, Panthers 1: At Moncton, the host side improved to 6-14-1 with a win over UPEI (8-11-2).

• In AUS women’s play:

Aigles Bleues 6, Tigers 1: At Moncton, goalie Kathy Desjardins made 33 saves as host Moncton dumped Dalhousie.

Fielding Montgomery had the goal for Dal.

X-Women 3, Tommies 1: At Fredericton, Abygail Laking and Jessica Shanahan each had a goal and an assist as St. F.X. topped St. Thomas.