St. Lawrence Dumped by Minnesota-Duluth

Boxscore

CANTON, N.Y. -- The No. 4 St. Lawrence University women's hockey team ran into one of the hottest teams in the country on Friday night, as the No. 3 Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs skated their way to a 4-1 victory in the opening game of a nationally-prominent series in Appleton Arena. The win, anchored by Elin Holmlov's two goals, is the seventh straight for Minnesota Duluth, who returned to Canton, NY for the first time since the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

Minnesota Duluth used one of the nation's best fore checking attacks to keep the Saints' high-powered offense off goal, and the Bulldogs' netminder Kim Martin turned in a fantastic 28 save performance to improve her team's record to 15-3-1 overall. Senior Meaghan Guckian made 23 saves as her team suffered the loss and fell to 13-4-0.

The Bulldogs stormed out of the gate and immediately applied pressure to St. Lawrence's defensive unit. The visitors opened the game with a 7-0 shot advantage before Holmlov would net her 7 th of the season at 7:12 to put UMD on top 1-0. Holmlov reeled in a pass from Iya Gavrilova in the slot and wristed a shot that struck the inside of the left post and bounced back into the net behind Guckian for the game's opening goal.

Though St. Lawrence began to earn some offensive chances of their own, it was the Bulldogs who were celebrating only 4:14 later when Holmlov made it 2-0 at 11:26 of the opening period. Sarah Murray slapped a puck towards the goal from the blue line, and the puck ricocheted of a St. Lawrence defender's hand right on Holmlov's stick. She made a nice move in front of Guckian and lifted a backhanded shot under the crossbar for her second goal of the period.

The remainder of the first period belonged to Martin, as she helped slow down St. Lawrence's power play with two outstanding saves. First, she stopped junior Alison Domenico on a deflection near the crease, and followed by stoning junior Carson Duggan from point blank range to protect Minnesota Duluth's 2-0 lead through one period.

Though they were out-worked in the first period, the Scarlet and Brown took control of the second period in the early going, and cut their deficit in half only 2:37 into the period. After a great shift by the team's third line of rookies Kirsten Roach and Karell Emard and sophomore Lisa Batchelor, the puck came to sophomore defenseman Brittaney Maschmeyer just outside the left circle. The Bruderheim, Alberta native fired a shot that bounced off of a Bulldog player and shot straight up in the air. Fortunately for the Saints, Martin lost sight of the puck and never recovered as the shot sailed over her right shoulder and into the goal for Maschmeyer's third goal of the season.

The goal rallied St. Lawrence, as they continued to pressure Martin in the early going of the period. The goaltender was once again up to the task, though, turning away Emard on a one-on-one chance and stopping junior Marianna Locke on the door step once again.

A two minute penalty to sophomore Courtney Sawchuk would swing the momentum back in UMD's favor, as they used beautiful passing to set up their third goal of the night. After being set up for a wide open slap shot, Myriam Trepanier blasted a shot on Guckian that the Victor, NY native was able to control. However, the rebound went right to Gavrilova, who wound up and hammered a shot over Guckian's glove to put Duluth back on top by two, 3-1, at 7:32 of the second period.

St. Lawrence's best chance of the period to cut into the lead came from Domenico, as she found an opening in front of Martin and had a chance at a one-timer, which sailed just wide of the post. Only moments later, another shot would skip behind Martin and along the goal line, but never across to keep the visitors ahead 3-1.

Though St. Lawrence looked to gain the momentum early in the period, it wasn't to be as Minnesota Duluth put the game out of reach at 3:38 of the final period to snag a 4-1 lead and capture the opening game of the series. Emmanuelle Blais recovered a loose puck to Guckian's right, faked a shot to get the netminder out of position, then fired a shot into the goal for her fifth of the season to lock up the win for Minnesota Duluth, 4-1.

St. Lawrence held a slight edge in shots, 29-27, but was unable to manufacture anything on the power play, finishing 0-for-5. Meanwhile, Duluth was 1-for-3 with the extra skater and improved to 8-3-0 all time against St. Lawrence.

"They schooled us fundamentally, and out-muscled us in many instances along the boards," said Saints head coach Paul Flanagan. "Their top line (Holmlov/Gavrilova/Saara Tuominen) is very skilled, and we have to cut back on the mistakes tomorrow to try and get a split."

The Saints will look to snap Minnesota Duluth's seven game winning streak when the two teams meet tomorrow, Saturday, December 15th in Appleton Arena. The puck is set to drop at 7 p.m.