Petruic's hatty lifts Huskies to 5-0 win in Game 1

Recap by Ethan Bomhof, Mount Royal Sports Information. Photos by Daniel Zappe. 

CALGARY – Pure domination from the Dogs.

On the backs of Nolan Maier's 33 save shutout and a hat trick from Chantz Petruic, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies downed the Mount Royal University Cougars 5-0 in game one of the Canada West men's hockey championship.

"We wanted to come in and establish our game early," said Saskatchewan head coach Brandin Cote. "We're an opportunistic team; we took advantage of those opportunities. Our power play scored a couple and I thought our penalty kill was really good, too."

Petruic got the Huskies on the board halfway through the opening period while on the man advantage. Running the point on the powerplay, Petruic snuck a low shot through traffic that eventually made its way under the pad of MRU netminder Shane Farkas.

Farkas had a night to forget between the pipes, allowing five goals on 21 shots in the crushing loss.

Petruic got his second of the game in the second period and former Cougar Ethan Regnier added another one shortly after to drain the life out of the building.

Regnier has been a thorn in the side of Mount Royal since taking his talents to Saskatoon and was producing in the biggest moments yet again.

Petruic completed the hat trick early in the third. Coming into the 2025-26 postseason, the fifth-year winger had accumulated five career playoff goals. In just this Huskies playoff run alone, Petruic has five more to his name.

Late in the game, Keaton Sorensen added onto the beatdown with his second of the playoffs.

Although the game was highlighted by an offensive outburst, Saskatchewan's best player was arguably their goalie.

Maier joined the Huskies halfway through the season. Although he is a rookie in Canada West, the former Saskatoon Blade boasts a wealth of experience.

"He's a pro hockey goalie. He played pro for three years. We're very fortunate to get him here at the deadline," said Cote on his netminder.

On the other bench, the Cougars felt bewildered by the performance they just gave. By their own standards, it was one of the worst games they had played in a long time.

"We laid an egg. So, you know, we got to just flush it," said MRU bench boss Bert Gilling. "Still have to give all the credit to [Saskatchewan]. They played great. They looked like the defending champions and want to be repeat champions."

For Mount Royal, it's hard to understand how they could've faltered so severely after playing fantastic hockey for the greater part of the season.

"We were very light on the puck; had some weird bounces. We couldn't make a play to save our lives tonight," said Gilling. "It was very uncharacteristic of our group."

Saskatchewan will have the opportunity to become back-to-back Canada West champions on Saturday night in game two. The Cougars will look to do what they did last year and extend the series to a game three on Sunday.

Puck drop for game two is set for 7 p.m. MST at Flames Community Arena. Tickets to the game are SOLD OUT but fans can still catch the action live and on-demand on Canada West TV – Powered by Biosteel.