Saints Start 2010 in Style, Shock BC

Final	1	2	3	Final
St. Lawrence (9-7-2, 4-3-1 ECAC)	0	2	3	5
Boston College (10-4-2, 7-3-2 HE)	1	1	0	2

Scoring Summary
1st - 18:47	Brian Gibbons (Boston College)
2nd - 11:55	PP - Cam Atkinson (Boston College)
2nd - 14:18	SH - VERMEULEN, Travis (St. Lawrence)
2nd - 17:18	CAISTER, Jeff (St. Lawrence)
3rd - 04:02	CURRAN, Alex (St. Lawrence)
3rd - 05:49	BOGOSIAN, Aaron (St. Lawrence)
3rd - 18:17	EN - PITSIKOULIS, Nick (St. Lawrence)

St. Lawrence	Boston College
G: 5 Players (#14, #17, #22, #26, #32 - 1) A: Travis Vermeulen - 2 Sh: 3 Players (#22, #28, #81 - 3) Sv: Kain Tisi - 27	G: 2 Players (#13, #17 - 1) A: 4 Players (#11, #12, #15, #22 - 1) Sh: Paul Carey - 5 Sv: Parker Milner - 18

TEAM STATISTICS	St. Lawrence	Boston College
Power Plays	0 for 6	1 for 7
Shorthanded Goals	1	0
Penalties (min)	7 (14)	7 (14)
Shots on Goal	24	29
Face Offs Won	28	27

full stats

The first January 1 game in St. Lawrence University men's hockey history will be one for the Saints to remember as they bounced back from a 2-0 deficit with five unanswered goals to upend nationally-ranked Boston College 5-2 in game one of the 2010 Wells Fargo Denver Cup at the University of Denver on Friday night.

The Saints, now 9-7-2 overall, earned their first win of the season over a Hockey East team and snapped a 13-game winless streak against Boston College. SLU will play Nebraska-Omaha in their second game of the tournament at 6:07 p.m. eastern time on Saturday.

The tournament is being played under a showcase format with both the Saints and host Denver playing Boston College and Nebraska-Omaha. The team with the best record will win the tournament title with goal differential the first tiebreaker.

Boston College has been a Saint nemesis since leaving the ECAC for Hockey East, holding a 9-0-2 advantage in 11 games which includes a pair of NCAA tournament meetings, one in the 2000 semifinals. The Saints did hold a 4-1 edge on the Eagles in holiday tournament meetings with three of the wins coming in the ECAC Holiday Tournament at Madison Square Garden and the other in a 1982 meeting at Lake Placid, the last win for SLU over BC.

""We look at this as a chance to start the new year by playing some outstanding competition and to have a little bit of fun in a great venue," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "BC is one of the premiere programs in the country and we have played some great games against them in the past with nothing to show for it. We were able to establish some momentum after their second goal and I thought we did a great job defensively in the third period as well as keeping things going offensively,"

The Saints snapped a 2-2 tie at 4:02 of the third period as Travis Vermeulen picked up the rebound of a blocked shot by freshman defenseman Jordan Dewey and fed Alex Curran, who snapped his fourth of the year under the crossbar to put the Saints in front. The goal came on the faceoff just after a missed penalty shot by Jake Klancher, who was hauled down on a breakaway.

Aaron Bogosian gave the Saints a two-goal lead when he took a pass from Mike McKenzie and one-timed it past BC goalie Parker Milner at 5:49 and Nick Pitsikoulis iced the win when he took a pass from Klancher and hit the empty net with 1:43 to play in regulation.

The loss was the first in the last seven games for the Eagles and snapped a five game win streak for BC, which is now 10-4-2 on the season and ranked fifth in one poll and sixth in another.

Both teams showed the rust of lengthy layoffs in the first period as shots on goal were hard to come by and passes were just off. The Saints had a 6-1 edge in shots on goal through the first 15 minutes of play, helped along by a trio of power play chances, but grade A scoring chances were rare.

The Eagles scored the game's first goal as the first period was winding down. Paul Carey forced a Saint turnover deep in the SLU zone and the puck went to Ben Smith who hit Brian Gibbons with a tape-to-tape pass and Gibbons gunned his sixth of the season past a diving Tisi with 1:13 to play in the period.

Tisi kept it a 1-0 game with several big saves in the first seven minutes of the second period as Boston College turned up the pressure, but the Eagles tacked on a power play goal with 8:05 to take a 2-0 lead.

"Kain played another outstanding game," said Marsh. "He made some big saves to keep us in it when BC was ahead and kept making them once we got the lead. I also thought we did a good job of tying their players up defensively."

Cam Atkinson, who hit the crossbar earlier in the man advantage, scored his ninth of the season as an initial shot by Joe Whitney went wide, but the rebound came off the end boards and right onto Atkinson's stick and the BC sophomore scored the Eagles' power play goal on their second opportunity of the game.

The Saints got that goal back when senior Vermeulen scored his fifth career shorthanded goal, finishing off a two-on-one rush as he tucked in Curran's goal mouth pass at 14:18 to make it a 2-1 game. Curran started the scoring play as he blocked a BC pass just inside the blue line and headed up ice with Vermeulen. The two traded passes until Curran pulled Milner toward him and fed Vermeulen for the tuck-in and the Saint captain's sixth goal of the year.

SLU tied the game right after killing off a penalty to Jacob Drewiske at 17:18. Drewiske came out of the penalty box and took the puck away from a BC player deep in the Boston College end. Drewiske fed Vermeulen who found Jeff Caister heading for the net and Caister scored from the top of the crease for his third of the year.

The Saints had to kill off a lengthy five-on-three power play right after taking their 4-2 lead, but did so with some big saves by Tisi and solid work on the penalty kill by Curran, Vermeulen, Bogosian and its defensive unit.