Jan. 22: Sophomore defenseman Nolan Gluchowski scored a pair of goals and St. Lawrence University broke out of a five-game losing skid with a solid 6-2 ECAC Hockey victory over Brown University at Appleton Arena on Friday night.
The Saints, who had not won since a 4-1 home victory over Vermont on Dec. 12, came within a goal of their total offensive output in the five-games-in-nine-days skid to start the new year. Five different Saint players scored goals and the Saint power play among the bottom three in NCAA Division I percentage-wise, scored on its first two chances.
The Saints improve to 11-10-2 overall and pull even at 5-5-1 in league play heading into a Saturday game against Yale. Brown, 4-11-3, 2-8-2 concludes its North Country trip at Clarkson on Saturday.
“That was just what the doctor ordered,” said Saint coach Greg Carvel. “We scored a couple of power play goals early to get that monkey off our back and I thought we played a really solid 60 minutes. We played the way we like to play…pretty fast and we were able to get behind them and make their defensemen work. I thought we had a ton of scoring chances.”
Senior Tommy Thompson scored his fifth of the year in a power play scramble in front of Brown starting goalie Tim Ernst 3:07 into the game and the Saints went back on the man advantage just two minutes later and senior Alex Hagen netted his fifth of the season in another scramble in the goal crease at 5:55.
Senior Christian Horn scored his fourth of the year 5:16 into the second period as he came down the right wing and snapped a wrist shot inside the far post, ending the night for Ernst, but Gluchowski greeted Tyler Steel with his third of the year just 1:33 into Steel’s stint in net for a 4-0 Saint lead.
Brown freshman Tommy Marchin scored his tenth of the year on a power play at 15:06 of the second to make it a 4-1 game after two, but Joe Sullivan scored his sixth of the season while being hauled to the ice at 14:20 of the third for a 5-1 Saint lead. Brown answered right back with Tyler Bird’s third of the season on a rebound, but Gluchowski took a pass from Drew Smolcynski and one-timed a shot under the crossbar at 19:09 to complete the scoring.
“We did a real good job against them as well. They have a high end first line, that we were able to able to neutralize,” Carvel added. “We had contributions throughout the lineup tonight, and we got some scoring from our defense again, which is always a plus and makes us a more dangerous team.
“We needed that. Their record doesn’t show it, but they are a good team and if you don’t show up and play hard you can be in trouble against them.” Carvel added.
Kyle Hayton finished with 28 saves for the Saints while Ernst and Steel combined for 25 saves for Brown.
