Yale Nets Win at St. Lawrence
CANTON, N.Y. -- Three different Bulldogs scored goals and sophomore goalie Billy Blase stopped 33 of 35 shots as the Yale men's hockey team picked up a 3-2 ECAC road win at St. Lawrence.
Freshman forward Broc Little's power-play goal with 51 seconds left in the second period broke a 2-2 tie and sent the Elis (3-3-2) on the long ride back to New Haven with a split on the difficult upstate New York trip.
"It was a good win. They jumped on us early and came at us pretty hard. We weathered the storm and got contributions from all four lines," said Keith Allain '80, Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Hockey.
It was Yale's first win at SLU since Feb. 5, 2005.
Blase, who had 14 saves in the second period, stopped all three SLU power-play chances to earn his third win of the season.
The only extra-man score of the night came on Little's game-winner. Freshman forward Denny Kearney fed senior Matthew Thomey, who quickly sent it down low in the slot to Little. The rookie Bulldog made a great move on Saints' goalie John Hallas (19 saves) before banging into the open half of the net.
Jordan Hack tallied for the home team just 29 seconds into the contest, and the Bulldogs, coming off a 1-0 loss at Clarkson, had to be concerned.
Sean Backman converted a two-on-one break by scoring off captain Will Engasser's feed late in the first period to even the score at 1-1 for a Blue squad that hit the pipe three times on the night.
SLU (4-6-2), which outshot Yale 35-23, went ahead again early in the middle frame before Bulldog sophomore forward Chris Cahill knotted the score at 13:31.
"Over the last half of the game we played our system as well as it has been played this season," said Allain, whose Elis are off until a Nov. 28 tilt with archrival Harvard at Ingalls Rink. "Billy [Blase] was solid. He gave the kind of game he has consistently given us all year. The guys believe in him. You can free up your offense if you know he's there to make the save."
Report Filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director
