WINNIPEG— The University of Saskatchewan Huskies men's hockey put the finishing touches on their best-ever Canada West regular season in program history with a 3-0 victory, their 25th of the year, over the Manitoba Bisons in their regular season finale on Feb. 9.

Three unanswered goals were enough for the Saskatchewan Huskies to finish their regular season play on a high note, with Carson Stadnyk, Parker Thomas and Donovan Neuls all registering goals.

With the weekend sweep, Saskatchewan finishes their 2018-19 regular season with a record of 25-3-0 and earn the top seed in Canada West, securing them home ice advantage throughout the entirety of the conference playoffs.

"Sometimes when you have a short turnaround, it's a little difficult and first place is on the line for us today," said Huskies head coach Dave Adolph. "I thought it was an outstanding effort from our guys. Especially from our young goalie."

Huskie Travis Child effectively shut out Manitoba with 18 saves. Filling in for starter Taran Kozun, who set the conference record with 20 wins in a single season last night, this game was only Child's third shutout of the season as he finishes with a perfect record of 5-0. Bisons goalie Byron Spriggs registered 31 saves in the loss. 

Saskatchewan's first major chance came six minutes into the game, when a Spriggs save left an empty net and a massive rebound. However, a last-minute defensive save by Zajac prevented a goal.

Just under eight minutes into the first, Neuls fed a pass from Carter Folk through Spriggs' five-hole, marking the first goal of the night. An assist also went to Jaimen Yakubowski. 

Stadnyk chipped the lone goal of the second six minutes into the period. Thanks to a pass from Collin Shirley, a wrist shot with just enough of a punch to make it over Spriggs' left pad. That gave Saskatchewan a 2-0 lead, which they sustained heading into the third. 

In the third period, Manitoba held Saskatchewan off until Thomas sent the puck soaring from the point, right into the back of the net just two seconds into a power play. The goal came at 12:04 into the period, and both Sam Ruopp and Logan McVeigh had assists. 

Saskatchewan's Adolph says the key to success in the postseason is for his team to take advantage of the bye and get some rest.

"The luxury you have with the bye now is we can rest here for a week and get ourselves situated," he said. "You want to make sure you have as much energy as you can because you're going to be playing an opponent who is coming off a best-of-three series."

This was the last game for Manitoba of the 2018-19 season. For Saskatchewan, they'll get a quarter-finals bye and will face whoever moves on to the semifinals on Feb. 22 inside Merlis Belsher Place. That game will start at 7 p.m. CST, and all playoff action can be watched live on canadawest.tv.