Saints Post Back-to-Back Shutouts

Final	1	2	3	Final
St. Lawrence (19-11-4; 11-7-4 ECAC)	1	1	0	2
Rensselaer (7-25-2; 6-15-1 ECACH)	0	0	0	0

Scoring Summary
1st - 12:11	PP - Alex Curran (St. Lawrence)
2nd - 18:31	PP - Mike McKenzie (St. Lawrence)

St. Lawrence	Rensselaer
G: 2 Players (#11, #77 - 1) A: 4 Players (#10, #21, #77, #95 - 1) Sh: 3 Players (#3, #77, #81 - 4) Sv: Alex Petizian - 31	G: N/A A: N/A Sh: Erik Burgdoerfer - 4 Sv: Mathias Lange - 27

TEAM STATISTICS	St. Lawrence	Rensselaer
Power Plays	2 for 7	0 for 6
Shorthanded Goals	0	0
Penalties (min)	8 (16)	9 (18)
Shots on Goal	29	31
Face Offs Won	29	36

full stats

Boxscore

Feb. 28: Alex Petizian came through with a second straight 31-save shutout and St. Lawrence University's hockey team turned back Rensselaer 2-0 in the final game of the 2008-09 ECAC Hockey regular season, earning a first-round bye in the upcoming playoffs thanks to a big assist from Quinnipiac.

Quinnipiac upset Dartmouth 4-1 on Saturday and the Dartmouth loss coupled with the Saint win put SLU into fourth in the final ECAC standings. The top four teams receive a first round bye and will host the winners of first round series to be conducted next weekend. The Saints, 19-11-4, 11-7-4 in ECAC play completed the regular season on a 5-0-1 run with their win at RPI.

"The guys really took care of business this weekend from a defensive standpoint," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "We have been playing well down the stretch, but with some injuries we needed people to step up and they did. I thought both games this weekend were excellent from a defensive standpoint and Alex Petizian has been stopping everything that comes his way."

Petizian had a little less business in the first period than he did in Friday's 16-save first period at Union, but still had to come up big on a couple of chances in tight. The Saint junior did not give up any rebounds and made some big pad saves along the way for his fifth career shutout and second in as many nights.  The back-to-back shutouts were the first for the Saints since November of 1997 when they also shut out RPI and Union on consecutive evenings.

Petizian received the only goal he was to need for the victory at 12:11 of the first period as Shawn Fensel pinched in from the point on a Saint power play and snapped a shot between RPI goalie Mathias Lange and the post as he was going down. Aaron Bogosian and Mark Armstrong assisted on the goal, Fensel's  fourth of the season.

The Saints added a second power play goal with 1:29 to go in the second period as Fensel took the puck from Brock McBride low in the RPI defensive end and made a cross-crease pass to Mike McKenzie, who snapped his 15th of the season under the crossbar.

Neither team scored in the third period as the Saints played it close to the vest defensively. RPI had a power play and pulled Lange for an extra attacker in the final minute, but Petizian denied two chances in tight and after the Saints were called for another late penalty, Travis Vermeulen cleared the puck with under 10 seconds to go to seal the win.

"Getting the bye is huge," said Marsh. "We have some guys who are banged up and hopefully we can get them back at full strength or near full strength for the quarterfinals. It is a lot easier to win two home games and get to Albany than it is to go through two rounds."