TISI, SAINT FLURRY TOP YALE 5-2

Dec. 2: Freshman goaltender Kain Tisi made 28 saves for his second straight win and the St. Lawrence men’s hockey team exploded for three goals in a span of 1:29 in the second period as the Saints gained a split of their weekend ECAC Hockey League series with a 5-2 win at Yale on Saturday night.

 

The Saints improve to 8-5-0 overall and 5-1-0 in ECACHL play heading into a Tuesday showdown with arch-rival Clarkson at Clarkson. Yale, which lost both weekend games, drops to 6-4-1 overall and 3-3-0 in the league.

“That was a big one for us,” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. “We put out a pretty good effort at Brown, but didn’t have anything to show for it. Tonight the effort was there again, and this time we picked up the reward to go with it.”

 

A first period penalty kill in which the Saints had three great scoring chances energized the Saint offense midway through the first period. Jeremiah Cunningham rolled one just wide, Yale goalie Alex Richards came up big on Travis Vermeulen one-on-one and Mark Wallmann had one roll just wide all on the same kill in a span of 1:20. The Saints continued to pressure following the successful kill and it paid off when Drew Bagnall intercepted a Yale pass at his own blue line and hit Sean Flanagan who broke into the Yale zone. Flanagan sent a goal mouth pass to Mike McKenzie who redirected the puck past Richards for his fourth of the season and a 1-0 Saint lead at 16:05 of the first.

 

Yale tied the game on a play similar to the game’s first goal as Jean-Francois Boucher got a step on a Saint defender and sent a pass to the far post where rookie Sean Backman, son of former New York Ranger Mike Backman, scored his team-leading eighth of the year on a redirection at 5:10.

 

It was the first goal that Tisi has allowed in a span of 99:33 and he was solid throughout.

 

“We wanted to get him back in there while that 4-0 shutout of Bowling Green was still fresh,” said Marsh. “Kain did an outstanding job again tonight and made some very big saves in key spots.”

 

Then came the Saint explosion. First Jeremiah Cunningham took the puck and circled behind the net with Casey Parenteau heading for the left post. Cunningham snapped a pass back to Parenteau, and while Richards stopped the first shot, Parenteau jammed his own rebound between the pads and the post for his third of the year at 15:01 to give the Saints a 2-1 lead.

 

Vermeulen then collected a puck near the Saint defensive blue line and sent it ahead to McKenzie, who broke into the Yale zone and snapped a rising wrist shot from the top of the circle which beat Richards cleanly for a 3-1 lead at 16:09 and Kyle Rank scored his fourth of the season and second of the weekend, finishing off a pretty passing play at 16:30. Drew Bagnall started the play with a pass to Kevin DeVergilio to Richards’ left. DeVergilio snapped a pass back across the goal mouth to Rank who one-timed it past the goaltender for the
4-1 lead.

 

Yale cut the Saint lead to 4-2 just 49 seconds into the third period on a five-on-three power play as Bill LeClerc’s shot from the point found the net off Tisi’s pads, but Saint rookie goaltender did not allow any further scoring and the Saints controlled play through much of the last eight minutes of the game, icing it on a goal by Matt Generous with 2:36 to play. Flanagan took the puck from McKenzie and Generous pinched from the blue line, taking Flanagan’s shot and one-timing a riser past Yale backup goalie Billy Blase to complete the scoring.

 

“Our young guys had another big night, and you can’t say enough about the penalty killing of Kyle Rank and our other veteran players,” said Marsh. “It was the kind of complete team effort we need to be successful.”