Saints Edged in Lake Placid by Clarkson

LAKE PLACID, NY -- There weren't a lot of treats for St. Lawrence University's men's hockey team at the Halloween Faceoff at the 1980 Rink in Herb Brooks Arena at Lake Placid as despite outplaying arch-rival Clarkson for most of the game, the Saints lost 2-1 in overtime and are now winless in their first seven games of the 2010-11 season.

Clarkson freshman Matt Zarbo was all alone in front and picked up a rebound of a shot from the sideboards by defenseman David Pratt after a Saint turnover to win it for the Knights, now 4-2-1 on the season. The Saints will take a 0-4-3 record into their ECAC Hockey opener at Appleton Arena against Cornell on Friday night.

It was a rare loss for the Saints in the 1980 Rink, and the second at the hands of their neighboring rivals.

The last time the two North Country rivals met at the 1980 Rink, they set an attendance record for the ECAC tournament in Lake Placid, Clarkson coming away with a 3-2 win in the 1999 title game. The Saints went into Saturday night's game with an 8-2-0 record in 10 games on the Olympic sheet including ECAC championships in both 2000 and 2001. The 1980 Rink was also the site of the Saints' last NCAA Championship game appearance, a 4-3 overtime loss to Lake Superior State in 1988.

Goalies Matt Weninger of the Saints and Paul Karpowich of Clarkson were outstanding in the game, but the Saints had a ton of chances come up empty as they went scoreless in eight power play tries and missed some quality chances with shots either wide or high.

"We're struggling a little bit to finish off our scoring plays right now, but that will come with time," said Saint coach Joe Marsh. "It was a disappointing game to lose, because generally I thought we played pretty well and created some good chances."

The two teams played a fast-paced end-to-end game in the first period with the Saints coming out with a 10-7 edge in shots on goal, but neither team was able to score. SLU had a great chance late when Kyle Flanagan set up his brother Sean with under 20 seconds to go, but Sean's shot went off the knob of the stick of Karpowich.

The two teams traded goals in the second period as Clarkson junior Jake Morley turned a blocked shot on a Saint power play into a shorthanded goal at 7:55 as he scored on a breakaway, putting the puck into the upper left corner of the cage from close in, but the Saints came back to tie at 15:06 when junior Max Mobley took a rebound of a save of a shot by senior defenseman Matt Raley and put it back past Karpowich for his second of the year.

The Saints outshot Clarkson 13-3 in the second period and had a ton of chances in the third period as well, but couldn't get a lead.  St. Lawrence ended up with a 34-21 overall edge in shots on goal as Karpowich finished with 34 saves on 35 shots and Weninger, who again got little offensive support in a good effort, stopped 21 of 23 including three in overtime.

Clarkson scored the game winner when the Saints lost the puck along the side boards and rookie defenseman Pratt sent a shot in on goal, which Weninger kicked out, but Zarbo was all alone and tucked the rebound back into the net to win it at 2:36 of the extra period.