CORNELL ENDS SAINT STREAK WITH 3-1 WIN AT LYNAH

Jan. 18: Cornell freshman Riley Nash, a first round draft choice in the 2007 NHL draft, showed St. Lawrence University’s men’s hockey team his talent Friday night, scoring two goals to lead the Big Red to a 3-1 win over the Saints.

 

The Cornell win snapped a three-game Saint win streak and gave the Big Red its sixth win over the Saints in the last seven meetings between the two teams at Lynah Rink. Cornell improves to 8-6-2 overall and 6-3-0 in ECAC Hockey while the Saints will take a 9-10-3 overall mark and a 4-5-2 record into a Saturday game at Colgate.

 

While Cornell held just a 30-28 edge in shots on goal, special teams were the big difference in the game as Cornell was one for three on the power play while the Saints went scoreless in seven chances, five of them full two-minute power plays while the other two lasted under 17 seconds.

 

“Lynah is a tough place to play, but a lot of that is because they’re a very good team,” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. “They blocked a ton of shots and played their usual very sold defense.

 

“We had our chances on the power play, but we couldn’t get to some rebounds and we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times when we were a man up. I thought our guys really competed well, but you have to take advantage of your power play opportunities against a team like this.”

 

Cornell rattled two shots off the iron at the midway point of the first period and then finally got one to bank in for the only goal of the first 20 minutes. Freshman defenseman Jacob Johnson, playing his first career game, snapped a wrister toward net and it hit the crossbar and the goalpost before deflecting behind Saint goalie Alex Petizian at 9:44.

 

The Saints tied the game on a picture-perfect passing play just 1:40 into the second period as Mike McKenzie scored his sixth of the season and third in the last two games to finish off a three-man rush. Sean Flanagan broke the puck into the Cornell zone and fed Brock McBride who made the goal mouth pass for McKenzie’s shot into the open side of the cage.

 

The tie did not last long, however, as Cornell took advantage of a blown Saint clear just under two minutes later. Freshman Riley Nash picked up the puck deep in the Saint defensive end and walked out in front, snapping a shot inside the far post for an unassisted goal at 3:34 to make it a 2-1 game.

 

Nash converted on Cornell’s third power play chance of the game, picking up his own rebound in the slot and snapping a shot inside the post at 6:47 from Colin Greening and Blake Gallagher to make it a 3-1 game, and while the Saints had two more power play chances and pulled the goaltender for the final 1:31 of the game, they couldn’t get any closer.

 

Both Petizian and Cornell goalie Ben Scrivens each finished with 27 saves. Justin Pesony saw brief action late in the third period as the Saints sent him in to get an unofficial time out and rest their forwards while preparing for hte last two minutes of the game.