Saints' Struggles Continue

Photo by Tara Freeman

Box Score

TROY, NY -- St. Lawrence University's men's hockey struggles continued Friday night as Rensselaer jumped out to an early two-goal lead and held off the Saints for a 4-2 win in a ECAC Hockey game at the Houston Field House Friday night.

The Saints have now lost three straight road games in league play and their eighth in the last nine in league play. Again playing without some key players due to injury, the Saints battled, but couldn't pull even after the early deficit.

The Saints cut a 3-1 RPI lead to 3-2 when Matt Generous finished off a give and go with Casey Parenteau with his third of the season at 5:40 of the third and had some great chances to tie it, but RPI goalie Mathias Lange came up with some big saves and the Engineers added an empty net goal with 1:06 to go to ice their victory.

"The effort was there, but that's the way it has been going lately," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "We've just got to tough it out and hopefully get some things going in the right direction as we head into the playoffs. I thought our replacement guys did a very good job tonight...Bobby Torney and Pat Muir played solid games and Aaron Bogosian did another great job playing out of position on defense. We've just got to stick to it and keep working."

The Engineers scored two goals just 20 seconds apart to grab a 2-0 lead in the first period, but the Saints had a quick answer of their own.

Freshman Tyler Helfrich scored his seventh of the year when the puck was chipped away from a Saint defender and Helfrich was all alone in front of Saint goalie John Hallas. Helfrich lifted the puck over a sprawled Hallas at 7:38 for a 1-0 lead. It went to 2-0 just 20 seconds later as defenseman Erik Burgdorfer scored on a shot from the point after the Engineers won the faceoff and rushed into the Saint zone.

The Saints got on the board with a delayed penalty being indicated on RPI at 8:46 as freshman defenseman Bobby Torney picked up a loose puck at the top of the crease and snapped it past Lange for his first collegiate goal with Jordan Hack assisting.

The Engineers made it a 3-1 game at 13:06 of the second period as Helfrich scored his second of the game from point blank range on a shot which hit the back of the net and came right back out.

Generous started the Saint scoring play to make it a 3-2 game as he passed the puck to Parenteau at the top of the faceoff circle in the RPI zone early in the third. Generous kept going to the net and Parenteau hit him with a pass which the Saint defenseman put into the unguarded side of the cage at 5:40 as Lange could not get back across.

Lange came up with big saves on Brock McBride and Kevin DeVergilio to keep RPI in front and the Engineers iced it when the puck was knocked out of the Saint zone with the SLU net empty and Angers-Goulet won a footrace to the puck, diving and knocking it into the empty net one-handed for his eighth of the year.

Hallas finished with 23 saves for the Saints while Lange had 26 for RPI.