By Aaron Todd <[email protected]> —
The St. Lawrence University men’s hockey team’s line of Greg Lapointe, David Jankowski and Kaden Pickering produced three goals and six assists to lead the Saints to a 4-2 win over Colgate in an ECAC Hockey contest at Class of 1965 Arena in Hamilton, New York, on Saturday night.
All three players posted their first career three-point games, with Pickering leading the way with two goals and an assist, Jankowski potting a goal and two assists, and Lapointe picking up three assists. St. Lawrence improved to 4-3-2 both overall and in conference play and leapfrogged over Clarkson into second place in the ECAC Hockey standings with 15 points, two points behind Quinnipiac at the midway point of the season.
With four wins on the season, St. Lawrence has already matched the team’s win total in Charles W. Appleton II Head Men’s Hockey Coach Brent Brekke’s first season. The Saints are now 4-0-0 on the road.
“We had a real strong start, which we did not have the last time we played here a couple of weeks ago,” said Brekke. “They had a good push in the second period, which got us off our game. But we rebounded well in the third.”
The Saints jumped out to a 3-0 first-period lead with goals by Nicholas Trela, Pickering and Jankowski. Jankowski dumped the puck into the Colgate zone, and Raider goaltender Andrew Farrier went behind the net to play it. The puck got past Farrier to Pickering, who directed it to the front of the net, and it deflected off of Trela and into the empty goal at the 8:05 mark.
Pickering scored his first goal of the game on a nice play that started when Saints goaltender Emil Zetterquist passed the puck to Pickering. Pickering found Jankowski at center ice and then got the puck back at the Colgate blue line after a bang-bang passing play from Jankowski to Lapointe. Pickering skated in hard and beat Farrier with a shot through the five hole to give the Saints a 2-0 lead.
Jankowski capped the scoring in the period, putting in his own rebound from right in front of the net after Farrier stopped a shot from the point by Jeff Clarke. Lapointe picked up his second assist of the game on the play.
Colgate got back in the game in the second period, with goals by Elliott McDermott and Jeff Stewart. McDermott scored just 1:01 into the second on a screen shot from the point, while Stewart picked off a pass behind the net while Zetterquist was out of his net and had a wide open net to cut the lead to 3-2 at the 8:17 mark.
Pickering, however, restored the two-goal lead just 31 seconds later, firing a shot from the left side off the end boards and picking up his own rebound on the right side and finding a wide open net for his second of the game. Lapointe started the play by picking off a pass in the neutral zone and knocking it right onto Pickering’s stick.
Colgate’s Alex Young scored the game’s final goal with less than a minute to play with Farrier on the bench for an extra attacker, beating Zetterquist with a shot to the far side from the left faceoff dot.
The Saints were outshot 31-18, with Zetterquist making 28 saves and Farrier making 13. St. Lawrence was 1-for-4 on the power play and took just one penalty, successfully killing off the only Raider power play of the game.
St. Lawrence improved to 2-2-1 against Colgate on the season and have won nine of a possible 15 points in the series. The final regular season meeting between the two teams will take place on Sunday at 4 p.m.
