London Free Press

If Tyler Peters gets any more comfortable playing university hockey it's going to take something special to stop him.

The first year Western Mustang forward scored four in their 5-2 win over the UOIT Ridgebacks at Thompson Arena Friday.

It has taken time for the former Sarnia Sting player to get used to university life and hockey, but he looked at home Friday night.

"I've never scored four goals, in fact, I've don't know if I've had a hat trick in the last five years," he said after the game. "It's taken some time to adjust. Definitely, off the ice with school and making your own food and things, especially for me since I lived at home (in Sarnia.)"

He still doesn't do much cooking.

"I think my parents packed a lot of stuff for my freezer. I just . . . defrost it on game day."

Peters scored the first three Mustang goals. He opened the scoring when he intercepted a clearing pass and ripped a wrist shot to the top of the net past Ridgebacks netminder Jason Guy.

Less than two minutes later Peters stepped over the blueline and ripped another wrist shot, this one to the lower corner past Guy.

His third came at a key time. Ridgebacks Josh Vatri had just made it 2-1 connecting past Western netminder Josh Unice when he went in all alone midway through the second period.

But Peters managed to stuff a rebound past Guy after he made a great save to make it 3-1. It took a little of the edge off UOIT.

His fourth was a gimme. He scored into an empty net from two feet.

Peters is going to be a good addition to the Mustangs. He played his final junior season with the Sting on a line with NailYakupov, who will likely be a Top 3 pick in the National Hockey League draft this year and Alex Galchenyuk who would have been a Top 10 pick if he hadn't hurt himself this year. "It was amazing playing with them. But we have a lot of good players."

The Mustangs are ranked No. 4 in the nation. Even though they are second in the OUA West two points behind Lakehead they had two games in hand going into Friday's game and they've only lost once in 12 games in regulation time. The other two losses came in a shootout and overtime.

Mustang coach Clarke Singer was pleased with his club's effort. "We wanted to work on our defensive game a little bit," Singer said. "We've been playing well but not great in the (defensive) zone and we wanted to focus on that. I thought we did a lot better job. But it's still a work in progress."

Singer is pleased that after a slow start Peters is starting to hit his stride. Peters' four-goal night gave him 12 on the season and the team lead in goalscoring.

"He can find the net. He's really grown," Singer said.

Singer is quick to answer when asked where the biggest adjustment is for a first year player that has come from the Ontario Hockey League.

"Off the ice," Singer said. "When you are an over-ager in the 'O' you have your food made for you, your laundry done. All you have to worry about is hockey practice." Here that's about the 36th thing in the day."

--- --- ---

Game glance

Mustangs 5, UOIT 2

Western goals: Tyler Peters 4, Keaton Turkiewicz

UOIT goals: Josh Vatri, Jeremy Whelan

Next: Brock is at Thompson arena Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

E-mail morris.dallacosta@sunmedia.ca, or follow MoDaCoatLFPress on Twitter.