Saints, Sacred Heart Battle To 3-3 Draw
in
Photo by:
Whit HaynesMike McKenzie works the puck in front of Sacred Heart goalie Steven Legatto
Sacred Heart defenseman Paul Ferraro engineered a third period comeback to give the Pioneers a lead and St. Lawrence freshman Kyle Flanagan made a great play to set up the tying goal with just 1:33 to play as the Saints and Pioneers skated to a 3-3 NCAA Division I men's college hockey tie at Appleton Arena Saturday night.
The game featured 71 shots between the two teams and great goaltending at both ends of the ice as host St. Lawrence came out of the weekend with a win and a tie and a 4-2-1 record while Sacred Heart is now 2-2-1.
While the Pioneers piled on the shots in the first period, building a 15-7 advantage in shots on goal, the Saints scored the goals.
Sacred Heart had one of its best scoring chances of the period with just over six minutes gone, but Petizian robbed Erik Boisvert with a blocker save and the Saints turned it around in a hurry. Mike McKenzie took a pass from Jeremiah Cunningham at the Sacred Heart blue line and sent a pass to Kyle Flanagan in the right faceoff circle. Flanagan one-timed the pass under the crossbar for his fourth of his rookie season.
Freshman defenseman Mac Stratford became the third Saint to score his first collegiate goal in the weekend series at 12:59 as he stepped into the center slot and banged a shot through traffic and over the shoulder of Pioneer goalie Steven Legatto with McKenzie and Mark Armstrong assisting.
"That was one of those games where it wasn't comfortable even though we had the lead," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "Both teams played with a lot of intensity and the pace was excellent. I was pleased with the way we dug down and were able to come back and tie it and then we had some great chances in overtime, but just couldn't quite finish things off."
Neither team scored in a wide-open second period which included three minutes of major power play for the Saints. Both goaltenders came through with big saves during the middle period with Petizian coming up big on a one-on-one with Evan Mladenoff with 2:09 to play to keep it a 2-0 Saint lead.
The Pioneers came storming back in the third period, scoring three goals in a span of 3:08, two on redirections, to take a 3-2 lead.
Defenseman Paul Ferraro was almost a one-man comeback as he scored the first through traffic as his shot from the center slot eluded Petizian, who was screened, at the 5:07 mark and then Ferraro took two shots from the point on subsequent shifts and both were tipped into the net to give the Pioneers the lead. Dave Jarman tipped the first one home at 6:11 to tie the game and Erik Boisvert redirected the next shot past Petizian at 8:15 to put Sacred Heart in front.
The Saints had to kill off a pair of late Sacred Heart power plays, and were successful in killing all eight Pioneer man advantages, and mounted the drive for the tying goal just seconds after Flanagan came out of the box with just over two minutes to play.
Flanagan took the puck from Pete Child and went hard toward the net, sending a pass across the goal mouth to senior center Jeremiah Cunningham, who tapped the pass in at the post before Legatto could get back across to make the save with 1:33 to go in regulation.
Both teams had their chances in the extra period with the Saints mustering five shots on Legatto, but the Sacred Heart freshman kept the Saints off the board despite a couple of close calls to earn the tie.