Goaltender of the Year
The Embrun Panthers’ goalie, William Nguyen was named the CCHL2’s Goaltender of the Year. Nguyen is the youngest goalie to claim the title in the league’s history. The 17-year-old led the league with a 2.06 goals against average and a .943 save percentage. Nguyen had three shutouts and 17 wins in 28 games. Moore photo

EMBRUN—The Embrun Panthers played just a single game this past weekend to close out their regular season as they welcomed the Richmond Royals on Friday night.

Panthers 8 Royals 1

The Embrun Panthers welcomed the Richmond Royals to the Palais des Sports on Fri., Feb. 28, for their final game of the regular season in the CCHL2. The Panthers had a chance to leap frog the Ottawa Jr. Canadians into second place with a victory and a chance for home ice in round one of the CCHL2 playoffs. 

The Panthers opened the scoring just 15 seconds into the first period as Tristan Taillefer fired home his 31st goal of the season from Marshall Drevniok and Riley Carisse taking a 1-0 lead. The Panthers made it 2-0 when Nathan Brown scored his fifth of the season from Jarrett Ladouceur and Juno Gregoire at 1:33 and 3-0 at 10:12 as Oskar Mollot scored his second of the campaign from Cayden Martin and Carter Peck. 

The Panthers took a four-goal lead when Gregoire snapped home his 12th of the season from Brown and Ladouceur at 15:12. The Panthers took a 4-0 lead into the first intermission. 

The Royals got on the board at 13:48 of the second period but the Panthers restored a four-goal lead at 16:24 Taillefer scored his second of the game and 32nd of the season from Carisse. 

The Panthers took a 5-1 lead into the second intermission. 

The Panthers added three more goals in the third period as Martin scored his ninth of the season from Tyler Cummins at 11:37. Cameron MacMillan scored his fourth of the season from Martin and Peck on the power play at 15:44. At 17:12, Taillefer completed his hat trick, scoring his 33rd of the season from Gregoire and Brown at 17:12. 

The Panthers took the game 8-1 and moved into sole possession of second place but unfortunately the Canadians won their final game against the Athen Aeros to capture the number two seed. The Panthers outshot the Royals 50-22. 

Picking up the win in the Panthers’ goal was Marco Latassa making 21 saves.