Yale Prevails in a Wild One Over Saints

St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team and senior center Travis Vermeuelen gave fifth-ranked Yale all it could ask for in a shootout at Yale's Ingalls Rink, but the Elis prevailed 7-5 in a key ECAC hockey game Friday night.

The Saints, now 1-4-2 since a sweep of Brown and Yale in Canton Jan. 22-23, fell out of a tie for fourth place with RPI, a 5-3 winner at Quinnipiac, and will head into a big Saturday night game at Brown two points out of a first round bye and a point up on Colgate in fifth  place with just six points left to be earned in the regular season.

The Saints and Yale have played some wild games and some highly entertaining games and Friday's was a lot of both. The Saints were outshot 20-7 in the first period, but came away tied 3-3 and were down 6-5 after two periods, but had scored five goals on just 15 shots. Two of the five came in the final three seconds of the period, both following video reviews.

Vermeulen scored his second career hat trick in the first 40 minutes of the game and had a couple of great chances for his fourth stopped by Yale goalie Nick Maricic in the third period. Yale fought off an early Saint five-on-three power play to start the final period and clinched the win with Broc Little's empty net goal with 1:34 to play.

"It was a great effort and the guys really battled, but the bottom line is that we need wins," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "Yale is a very talented offensive team and burned us a couple of times along the way. It could have been a blowout early, but you have to give credit to Kain for some huge saves."

The game started out with Yale on a roll as the Elis swarmed the Saint net early and got the first goal of the game just 1:51 in on a shot from the center slot by defenseman Kevin Peel which beat Saint goalie Kain Tisi through a screen. Tisi, who was brilliant despite giving up six goals, kept the Saints in it with a variety of point blank saves as Yale had 10 shots on goal in the first five minutes and the Saints didn't get their first until 12:53 to go in the initial period.

The second Saint shot on goal went into the net as Jeremiah Cunningham streaked up the boards and fed Aaron Bogosian at the goalmouth with Bogosian tucking his seventh of the season past Yale starter Billy Blase to tie it at 1-1 at 7:48.

Brendan Mason put the Elis back in front with an unassisted goal at 9:42 of the second as he capitalized on a Saint defensive giveaway right in front, but the Saints came back again as Vermeulen took a pass from Mike McKenzie, faked a shot from the top of the circle and walked in on Blase, tucking the puck around the sprawled goalie for his 15^th of the year at 12:25 to make it a 2-2 game.

Yale went back  in front on a pretty passing play on a power play with Mark Arcobello finishing it off at 17:52, but the Saints came back on a late five-on-three power play, eventually scoring on both of the Yale penalties to take a 4-3 lead early in the second period. The tying goal came with three seconds left in the first as Derek Keller's tumbling shot made it into the net with less than three seconds to play and was confirmed after a review for his ninth of the year from Brandon Bollig and Vermeulen and Vermeulen scored his second of the night on a rush to start the second period, taking a drop pass and tucking the puck past Yale relief goaltender Nick Maricic with Kyle Flanagan also assisting just 22 seconds into the period.

Yale struck back with three goals in a span of just over six minutes as Sean Backman scored as he plucked the puck out of the air and deflected it past Tisi at 5:50, Peel scored his second of the night on a power play just under the crossbar at 8:05 and Brian O'Neill was left alone at the post and jammed in his 11^th of the season at 12:27 to give Yale a 6-4 lead.

The Saints got one back after another video review as Vermeuelen put away a rebound of a Bollig shot to complete his hat trick with McKenzie and Bollig assisting with just .5 remaining in the second period and the Saints on another five-on-three.

They had another full five-on-three to start the third when a bench penalty was assessed on Yale at the end of the second period, but a penalty on the Saints early in the two man advantage negated that opportunity and while the pace stayed high, the goal scoring stopped until Little hit the empty net after Yale chipped the puck out of the defensive zone in the final two minutes.

Tisi finished with 37 saves for the Saints who were outshot 44-21 in the game.