By Ryan Stieg
MENDOTA HEIGHTS – On Friday night, the St. Thomas men’s hockey team found some leftover Halloween treats to feast on during its win over Augustana. However, Saturday was a different story as those treats might’ve given the Tommies some delayed indigestion.
UST spent a good chunk of the game on the penalty kill, and unlike the previous night, it wasn’t able to get any sustainable offense going as the Vikings handed them a 3-2 loss and a series split.
After last night’s shutout victory, Tommies head coach Rico Blasi said that he thought his team played to its “standard,” but he felt differently after Saturday’s loss.
“It’s hard to evaluate the game right now not having watched it back, but being in the moment, I thought our execution wasn’t very good,” he said. “To be honest with you, I thought both teams looked kind of sloppy tonight. But these are the type of games that we’re going to be in and you’ve got to learn to be comfortable in these games and you’ve got to learn to execute at the time you need to execute. We had our chances and we didn’t execute, or we got away from our standard for a little bit and all of a sudden, it’s a 3-2 hockey game and you’re climbing uphill. We did that all night. We had a miscue on the first goal, second goal was a power play, third goal was a turnover and as I keep saying to the guys, every play matters. Every second matters, everyone matters and it’s a lesson we’ve got to learn.”
The Vikings struck first, just over three minutes into the game on a 2-on-1 rush as Simon Falk sent a cross-ice pass to Joey DelGreco, who beat Tommies goalie Aaron Trotter to the left post to make it 1-0. However, the Tommies answered back on the power play at the 10:49 mark. After Liam Malmquist just missed on a one-timer by the left post, Tommies forward Ryan O’Neill connected on one of his own to tie the game at 1-1. That goal was also UST’s first of the season with the man advantage.
However, that’s all UST could manage offensively in the period as it spent most of the remaining minutes on the penalty kill with all three penalties coming back-to-back-to-back. However, the Tommies killed off all of them with Trotter making some nice saves to keep the game tied.
Penalties filled the second period with neither team being able to build any offensive momentum. UST did have a golden opportunity though with a little more than four minutes into the period as it went on a 5-on-3 power play, but the Vikings killed off both penalties.
Augie got on the scoreboard again just seconds after a Tommies penalty expired as Owen Bohn sent a pass to Brett Meerman, who then one-timed the puck past Trotter at the 10:36 mark. However, the Tommies bounced back soon five minutes later thanks to a great defensive play from Malmquist. With UST trying to kill another penalty, Malmquist picked off an Augie pass at the Vikings blue line and sniped a shot past Vikings goalie Josh Kotai to knot the game at 2-2. Malmquist has now scored a shorty two weekends in a row.
In the third period, the Vikings grabbed the lead again on a nice play by Payton Matsui. With the Tommies disorganized in their own zone, Matsui sent a pass from behind the net to Tyler Hennen in the slot and he beat Trotter blocker-side to put Augie up 3-2 at the 8:16 mark.
UST had some great opportunities to tie the game again, but Kotai came up big for the Vikings. Midway through the period, he denied Ryder Donovan twice and Quinton Pepper once in the span of eight seconds. 28 seconds later, Kotai robbed O’Neill off a sure goal, and with 5:46 left in the period, Malmquist was fed a pass down low, but Kotai stuffed his shot as well to preserve the slim lead.
The Tommies will face Minnesota State in a home and home series next week with Friday’s game in the Heights and Saturday’s game in Mankato.