WATERLOO, Ont. - The Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks were eliminated from the Queen's Cup playoffs on Friday night after falling 5-1 to the TMU Bold in the second game of their OUA West quarterfinal at RIM Park's Piller's Ice Haus in Waterloo.
Down 1-0 in a best-of-three series, the Golden Hawks came out swinging in the first period and outshot the Bold 11-5. Though they more than doubled TMU in the shots category, the Golden Hawks could not beat Bold netminder Kai Edmonds in the opening period.
Carson Gallegher broke the ice to give TMU the first lead of the game early in the second period.
The Golden Hawks quickly responded, squaring the game up less than two minutes after TMU opened the scoring.
Patrick Brown used his wheels to beat an icing call and then attempted to find someone in front of the net, but the puck found its way to
Callum Chisholm at the blue line, who let loose a long shot that beat the glove of Edmonds for his first OUA playoff goal.
Isaac Sooklal picked up the secondary assist for his first OUA playoff point.
Though the game was tied, TMU still held onto their momentum. They retook the lead late in the second period on the power play as TMU's NHL Prospect Artem Duda let loose a one-timer that beat Laurier's
Christian Propp.
The Golden Hawks headed into the final twenty minutes of a must-win game to stay alive in the playoffs trailing 2-1. Laurir tried to push back in the third period but couldn't beat Edmonds for a second time.Â
Laurier pulled Propp for the extra attacker on three separate occasions with less than three minutes remaining, but the Bold found the empty net each time.Â
Cole Cameron, Cole Resnick and Ryan Wells scored the empty net goals for TMU.
In his final game in the purple and gold,
Christian Propp put up 32 saves on 34 shots. As per usual, he made important saves to keep the Golden Hawks within striking distance.
The Golden Hawks also struggled to find success on the power play throughout both playoff matchups. Laurier was 0 for 11 attempts on the man advantage across four games.
"I thought we played well against an elite team," said Laurier's manager of men's hockey operations and head coach
Kevin Forrest. "I thought we defended well, but we just never had a chance to really get the offence going.
"If you don't get O-zone time against a team like that, you're going to have a hard time beating them."
"When you look at our rosters, we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum," continued Forrest. "They are all in, loading up for a national championship run and we are on the first year of our rebuild."
"There are a lot of emotions. It hurts. It's tough battling with the senior guys, who have been great leaders for us all year and throughout my three years here," said
Patrick Brown. "We were a young team and because of that a lot of people wrote us off, but we are a band of brothers in there and we battled to the very end, so I am proud of this group."
Despite the loss and all of the emotions, graduating netminder
Christian Propp kept his head high.Â
"I think that we did the best that we could. If you told us at the beginning of the year that we would be playing the national championship hosts in the second round, every single person in that room would take on that challenge."
Propp had nothing but great things to say about this club and his four years at Laurier and with the program.Â
"I couldn't be more proud of this group and the journey that we went on together. We believed in each other and that's what made this year so special.Â
"I am immensely proud of my time here. Over my four years here, I have gotten to meet so many amazing people, both on the staff and all of the boys. There are so many guys going back to my first year that helped my transition from being just an athlete to being a student-athlete."
Brayden's breakdown
It has been a fun two years covering this team and I wish that I was able to do so in the coming years because they look like a force to be reckoned with. The group is filled with a fantastic cast of young student-athletes and coaches alike.
This roster looked like a completely different team compared to the start of the season. It was easy to tell how tight this group was by the way that the players and coaches talked about each other. It's been fun and an honour to cover this team.
