By Ryan Stieg
ST. PAUL, Minn. — More than two years ago, the St. Thomas athletics department announced that it had received a massive donation for a new on-campus arena for the men’s and women’s hockey and basketball programs.
After a long wait, the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena finally opened its doors and hosted its first men’s hockey game Friday night in front of a loud crowd and a raucous student section, which delighted the Tommies players.
“The crowd was unbelievable,” UST captain Lucas Wahlin said. “You go into class, and you have a bunch of friends of yours who are like ‘I can’t wait for the game tonight, good luck, blah, blah, blah.’ The atmosphere was unbelievable. It’s something I’ve been waiting for, for my four years. It’s finally here, so it’s a dream come true.”
The Tommies pleased their fans by jumping out to a 2-0 lead thanks to two shorthanded goals, but No. 15-ranked Providence scored twice in the third period to force a 2-2 tie. UST goalie Aaron Trotter finished with 38 saves and made three highlight reel saves in overtime to maintain the tie.
“I thought he (Trotter) was great,” Tommies head coach Rico Blasi said. “He was tracking the puck really well. He had a really good week in practice, so we felt really confident with him tonight. That’s a pretty good team over there. They’ve got a lot of high-level players that are going to come at you in waves, so you have to be really on top of your game. He did a good job. “
Less than a minute into the game, the Tommies got their first scoring opportunity of the game as the Friars were whistled for checking from behind. However, UST came up empty on the power play and it ended up going 0 for 7 with the man advantage in the game.
While the Tommies couldn’t take advantage of their chances early on, Trotter did his part as he made a sprawling toe save with less than 11 minutes remaining in the period. Finally, at the 17:33 mark of the first period, UST got on the scoreboard.
With UST on the penalty kill, Tommies forward Nathan Pilling collected a clearing attempt at center ice, raced into the Friars zone and beat goalie Philip Svedeback blocker side to score the first men’s goal in LPAA history. UST took that 1-0 lead into the second period.
“It’s pretty special,” Pilling said. “Just being here for the last couple months here, all the excitement about this building and this program and what it’s going to be like the next four years, I’m super grateful to have a slice of that history for sure.”
At the 4:18 mark in the second period, the Tommies struck again while shorthanded. After Svedeback denied UST’s Alex Gaffney, the Friars tried to move the puck back up ice, but Nick Wiliams stole the puck when it was still in the Tommies zone and passed it over to Lucas Van Vliet. The freshman then snapped a shot past Svedeback’s blocker to put the Tommies up 2-0 heading into the third.
“Your goalie has to be the best penalty killer out there and he was,” Blasi said. “I thought we did a pretty good job of taking away time and space and getting into their shot lanes. And then we got opportunistic on the goals. That’s just the bottom line. Shorties are not meant to be, and you’ve got to get a few bounces and we did.”
That’s when things started to downhill for the Tommies. At 3:40, the Friars cut their deficit to 2-1 on a goal by John Mustard, who skated into the slot and one-timed a shot past Trotter. Later at 12:46, Providence tied things up on a tally by Aleksi Kivioja, who beat Trotter on a rush to make it 2-2.
Both teams had good chances to take the lead in regulation, but Trotter denied the Friars’ Hudson Malinoski with a little more than six minutes left and Svedeback did the same to Gaffney with less than five minutes remaining.
The two teams will got at it again tonight at 7 p.m. and Blasi is expecting another tight battle from the Friars.
“They’re going to come out and play the way they did tonight,” he said. “They’re a good hockey team. That’s why they’re ranked. That’s why they went to the national tournament last year and they’ve got eight or nine draft picks. It’s going to be another barn burner I’m sure.”