Tim Makowski and Luc Salem scored goals to give the St. Lawrence University men’s hockey team 1-0 and 2-1 leads on Friday, but No. 11/12 Quinnipiac scored three unanswered goals over the final 25 minutes of the game to defeat the Saints 4-2 in an ECAC Hockey contest at Appleton Arena.
Odeen Tufto had three assist for the Bobcats, who outshot the Saints 26-10 over the final two periods, and the Bobcats were 2-for-6 against the Saints penalty kill, which entered the game as the nation’s top-ranked PK unit.
Reilly Moran assisted on both goals for the Saints.
“I liked our start,” said Charles W. Appleton II Head Men’s Hockey Coach Brent Brekke. “I think we were outshooting them 8-0 in the first period and then lost some of that momentum. There’s going to be momentum swings from side to side and it happens period to period, but when you lose momentum, you’ve got to get it back. We didn’t execute as well as we should have in the neutral zone or the O-zone and we gave up possession that prevented us from getting scoring opportunities. You either have to keep momentum going your way, or you have to get it back and be ready to execute.”
Makowski scored his first goal of the season at the 8:22 mark of the first period on a wrist shot after Reilly Moran slid the puck back to the top of the left faceoff circle after a scramble in front of the net for a loose puck on a shot from the point by Jake Stevens.
Ethan de Jong tied the game five minutes later with a power play goal, stuffing home a rebound on a shot by Peter DiLiberatore. Tufto picked up the secondary assist on the play.
Salem gave the Saints the lead again five and a half minutes into the second period on a nice rush down the right wing. Salem took a wrist shot from the faceoff dot that beat Quinnipiac goaltender Keith Petruzzelli’s glove for his third goal of the season. Moran and Jacob Nielsen picked up assists on the play.
The Saints held the lead for most of the third period, but Ty Smilanic and Michael Lombardi scored goals in a span of just 1:42 late in the second to give the Bobcats their first lead of the game.
Smilanic fired a wrist shot from the slot into the left side of the net with 4:02 left in the second for the Bobcats’ second power play goal of the game, and Lombardi took advantage of defensive zone turnover to finish right in front of the goal to give Quinnipiac a 3-2 lead. Tufto assisted on both goals for the Bobcats.
Quinnipiac carried the momentum right into the third period, as Desi Burgart one-timed a drop pass from Matthew Fawcett past St. Lawrence goaltender Emil Zetterquist just 47 seconds into the third period to score the game’s final goal.
St. Lawrence was 0-for-6 on the power play. Zetterquist made 31 saves for the Saints, while Petruzzelli stopped 17 shots for the Bobcats.
(St. Lawrence men’s hockey photo)
