For the first time in 979 days, the St. Lawrence men’s hockey team came away with an overtime win as senior Michael Ederer finished a tic-tac-toe play at 3:19 of the extra frame to help the Saints to a 4-3 win over the University of Minnesota on Friday night.
It was day of firsts for the Saints: Alex Gilmour scored his first of the season, Carson Dimoff and David Jankowski netted the first of their collegiate careers and Emil Zetterquist earned his first collegiate win in his first start against the Gophers.
Michael Laidley led the Saints with three assists, while Ederer, Gilmour and Jankowski each finished with a goal and an assist.
Zetterquist finished with 37 saves, including two in the overtime period, to help the Saints to the win.
Rem Pitlick and Brent Gates both finished with three-point nights for the Gophers.
At 15:31 of the first period, just 18 seconds into the Saints first power play opportunity of the game, Gilmour finished off a fantastic individual effort from Ederer, who waited out Gophers’ netminder Mat Robson and tucked the puck behind him on the near post. Gilmour crashed the crease and pushed the loose puck into the open cage to put St. Lawrence in front 1-0.
Minnesota answered less than two minutes later when Pitlick redirected a pass on the back door to beat Zetterquist for the equalizer at 17:26.
The Saints took a 3-1 lead with goals from Dimoff and Jankowski within a three-minute span in the latter half of the middle frame and led for the first time this season through 40 minutes.
Dimoff one-timed a pass from Ted McGeen in the slot at 13:22 of the second to make it 2-1 in favor of the Saints, with Laidley picking up the secondary assist.
At 15:41 of the frame with the Saints on the power play once again, Jankowski took a baseball swing at a rebound off of Robson’s pads to push the lead to 3-1 heading into the third with Laidley and Gilmour assisting.
The Gophers notched two in the third period, including one shorthanded, to tie the game at 3-3 and force overtime – the first overtime for the Saints this season.
With the Saints on the power play, Minnesota capitalized on a turnover in their defensive zone and went 3-on-2 the other way, before Tyler Nanne beat Zetterquist five hole to pull the Gophers within one at the 6:21 mark.
Later in the third, Jack Sadek ripped a shot from the point that deflected off a leg in the lane and went top shelf for the third and final Minnesota goal.
In overtime, Gicewicz won a battle in the corner to keep the puck in the offensive zone before passing to Jankowski in the slot before he quickly moved it to Ederer on the far post. He roofed a shot between Robson’s left shoulder and the post for his third of the season and the game winner.
The last time the Saints won in overtime, Gavin Bayreuther lifted the Saints to a 3-2 win over Clarkson in the ECAC Quarterfinals.
With the win, the Saints improve to 2-8-0 on the year, while Minnesota drops to 2-5-1.
Minnesota finished with a slight 40-39 edge in shots, but went 0-for-3 on the power play. St. Lawrence finished 2-for-4 with the man advantage.
The Saints and Gophers will faceoff in the rematch at 3M Arena at Mariucci on Saturday night at 8 p.m. CT/9 p.m. EST.
