Saints Settle for Tie with Brown

The House of Horrors reared up and bit St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team again Saturday night as Brown University rallied from a 2-0 deficit and forged a tie with an extra attacker goal with just over 35 seconds to play, making it the 18^th straight year that the Bears have taken at least one point from the Saints in a season.

The Saints, who have had their difficulties in Brown's Meehan Auditorium and are now 14-14-3 all time at Brown, seemed on their way to a sweep of the season series with a 2-0 lead heading into the third period, but Brown was able to pull out a point with a late rally.

St. Lawrence, now 14-12-7 overall and 8-7-4 in the ECAC lost a great chance to scramble back into a tie for fourth with Renssselaer in the ECAC standings as Princeton handed the Engineers a loss in Troy on Saturday, but the tie at Brown coupled with Colgate's  win over Harvard drops the Saints into sixth place, a point behind both Colgate and Rensselear with just two games to go in the regular season.

"That was one we needed," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "We'll take the point, but we really needed a win to help our playoff positioning. We are in the playoffs right now with two big games coming up next weekend."

The Saints had a trio of early power plays, but the game's first goal came with the two teams skating five-on-five as Travis Vermeulen started the scoring play with a pass to Mike McKenzie, who relayed the puck to Alex Curran at the top of the right faceoff circle. Curran's wrist shot beat Brown goalie Mike Clemente at 13:27 for Curran's seventh of the year and a 1-0 Saint lead.

The Saints made it a 2-0 game late in the second period as they scored shorthanded on their second penalty kill of the game. Aaron Bogosian intercepted a Brown pass high in the Saint defensive zone and headed up ice with McKenzie trailing. Bogosian dropped a pass to McKenzie from between the faceoff circles and McKenzie snapped a shot which beat Clemente inside the far post at 17:17 for McKenzie's eighth of the year and first career shorthanded goal.

Saint rookie Kyle Flanagan had a chance to add to the Saint lead midway through the second when he was hauled down while making a rush on a Saint power play and was awarded a penalty shot. Flanagan skated in close and tried to lift the puck over Clemente's blocker, but the sophomore goaltender was able to keep the puck out of the net.

Brown was able to cash in on a penalty shot of its own to get on the board at 11:25 of the third as Jack Maclellan was hauled down as he had a step on a Saint defender and Macellan was able to score his 11^th of the year on the penalty shot as he tucked the puck between Saint goalie Alex Petizian's pads.

Both Petizian and Clemente made some big saves down the stretch as the Saints held on to the 2-1 lead, but Brown was able to tie it at 19:25.5 as Devin Timberlake picked up a rebound in a scramble in front of Petizian with Clemente out for the extra attacker and Timberlake put his fifth of the year just under the crossbar.

Neither team was able to score in the five minute overtime, although Brown had a couple of big chances to come away with the win. Petizian denied Harry Zolnierczyk with 54 seconds left in overtime and made four saves in the extra period to preserve the tie.

Petizian finished with 32 saves, 14 of them in the third period while Clemente had 26, ten of his coming in the third period.