CALGARY, AB – The Calgary Dinos scored six unanswered goals en route to a 6-1 win over the Saskatchewan Huskies in Game 3 of their Canada West Semifinal series on Saturday night.

Overcoming a loss in the opening game of the series, the Dinos now advance to their first Canada West Final since 2015 and will host it at Father David Bauer Arena next weekend.

"We talked about it right from Day 1, the first day of training camp I made everyone look at the banner because it's been since '96 since the Dinos have won, now we got some work this week to make sure we can put ourselves in a position to win," Calgary head coach Mark Howell explained. 

"We learned from this series how hard it is to win, Thursday night you could tell that our guys weren't ready to compete and play at that level and be that intense but last night we took a big step. Our success all year is that we've skated and checked and I thought we got back to that tonight and we didn't give them a lot of room." 

Just 70 seconds into the contest, the Huskies showed that they were hungry for the win and found an open window down the middle of the ice where Vince Loschiavo was left open and snapped the puck past Dinos netminder Carl Tetachuk to get an early lead.

The game saw its turning point halfway through the first period when Saskatchewan team captain Connor Hobbs was assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct. The Dinos took full advantage of it with back-to-back goals by Max Patterson and the Huskies never looked the same again. 

"It was disappointing for sure on our part, we started good and got the first one and then the five-minute major took some wind out of our sails because obviously when you lose your captain and best player, probably the best player in the country in my opinion, it hurts you," explained Huskies head coach Brandin Cote. "We didn't really regroup after that, they've got a great team and stuck with their game, probably more than we did."

The Dinos continued to dominate in the second period. They extended their lead mid-way through the frame, capitalizing on a neutral zone turnover, with Connor Gutenberg finishing off a two-on-one play.

Zach Wytinck scored at the 16:53 mark of the period to make it 4-1 going into the third.

"You could say the point of no turning back was when we got 4-1, we talked about it going into the third period, just the way the guys responded, there were a few outside shots but not a lot and at that 4-1 goal you could sense that our guys were confident with how their game was going and how they needed to play, and I was happy with how the guys played," Howell continued. 

Saskatchewan pulled their goaltender Roddy Ross with 6:27 left in the contest but shortly after, Josh Maser sent the puck down the ice to earn himself an empty net goal. 

Maser would add another goal minutes later on the power play to round out the scoring.

"They were fresher than us, we had to play a tough series last weekend so three games in three nights two weekends in a row is really tough and we just ran out of gas and they just took over. All the credit to them and I wish them nothing but the best," Cote continued. 

The loss ends the Huskies 2022-23 season.