Fensel's Heroics Help Saints Tie Quinnipiac

HAMDEN, CT -- Junior defenseman Shawn Fensel picked up a bouncing puck in traffic and snapped a shot past Quinnipiac goaltender Bud Fisher with just .2 seconds left on the clock in regulation time to lift St. Lawrence to a 2-2 ECAC Hockey tie at Quinnipiac Saturday night.

The Saints took three out of four possible points on their weekend road trip and are now 4-5-1 overall and 1-3-1 in ECAC Hockey. Quinnipiac is 3-3-2 overall and 1-1-2 in league play.           

It was a long road back for the Saints, who were in a 2-0 hole going into the third period despite a solid performance from sophomore goaltender Kain Tisi.           

The Saints scored their first goal at 6:33 of the third, finally cashing in on their sixth power play chance of the night. Zach Miskovic took a shot from the short center slot and Casey Parenteau tipped it on the way to the net to beat Fisher with Mike McKenzie also assisting to make it a 2-1 game. It looked like it was going to end that way when the puck was being batted around in front of Fisher and the final seconds ticking off the clock, but Charlie Giffin tipped the puck away from a Bobcat defender and Fensel snapped a shot along the ice which eluded Fisher at 19:59.8 to force a five minute overtime.           

The Bobcats flurried early in the extra period, but Tisi turned all three shots back and Fisher had to come up big on Brock McBride with four seconds left in the extra period as the teams ended up in the tie.           

"We will certainly take the point," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "Quinnipiac is a very quick and solid team and took advantage of its speed for their two goals. They played us tight and were pretty solid defensively, but fortunately we were able to get some momentum after the power play goal. There were a couple of great plays in the final seconds, and you aren't going to cut it any closer than that on the tying goal."           

Fans were still finding their seats when the Bobcats scored the game's first goal. The Saints won the opening draw and took the puck into the Quinnipiac end, but defenseman Dan Henningson broke up a play in front of the Bobcat goal and sent the puck up the boards. Junior wing David Marshall collected the puck at center ice and gained a step on the Saint defense, breaking in on Saint goalie Kain Tisi. Marshall's shot under the crossbar gave the Bobcats the lead just 28 seconds into the game and was the only score of the first period.

Another odd-man rush, this one a two-on-one shorthanded resulted in a 2-0 Quinnipiac lead at 9:49 of the second as sophomore Jean-Marc Beaudoin snapped a shot past Tisi from point blank range after Matt Sorteberg broke up a Saint point-to-point pass on the power play, poking the puck ahead for Beaudoin to pick it up. 

The Saints had a couple of power play chances to start the third period, but couldn't get anything going until a five-on-three opportunity just under six minutes in. While Quinnipiac killed off one of the two penalties, Parenteau's fifth of the year pulled the Saints back into it to set up Fensel's late dramatics.   

Tisi finished with 28 saves for the Saints, three of them in overtime, while Fisher had 21 saves for the Bobcats.