By Ryan Stieg
ST. PAUL, Minn. — After Friday’s overtime loss to Bowling Green, St. Thomas head coach Rico Blasi emphasized the importance of having a better start in the rematch Saturday.
The Tommies didn’t exactly get the start they were hoping for, but they had a great finish as UST scored four goals in the third period to defeat the Falcons 6-2 and get its first CCHA regulation win of the season. Alex Gaffney scored two goals for the Tommies and Carsen Musser made 39 saves to get his first victory in net since the season opener against St. Cloud State.
“We did a lot more things with a purpose tonight, and we made plays,” Blasi said. “I thought the second period for us was really good. We got loose for a couple minutes, and they had a couple breakaways, but Muss made some big saves, which is important because their guy is making big saves at the other end. It was a 2-1 game going into the third period, and it could’ve gone either way. We made some nice plays and were opportunistic on our chances for sure.”
Just like on Friday, it was the Falcons who struck first, and it came on the power play. At the 5:30 mark, last night’s overtime hero, Ben Doran, notched his second goal of the season. After Quinn Emerson’s shot was stopped by Musser, Doran gathered the loose puck and beat him low to the left post to make it 1-0.
It looked as if the Falcons would pad their lead after another Tommies penalty, but UST forward Alex Gaffney had other ideas. When BG goalie Jacob Steinman tried to clear the puck, Gaffney collected it by the boards, skated to the net and beat Steinman glove-side for a shorthanded goal to tie things up at 1-1 at 10:06. The goal was Gaffney’s team-leading ninth of the season.
The second period was fairly quiet with both teams shutting down passing lanes and keeping pucks to the outside. Finally, with around six minutes left, the Tommies started to generate some offense. While on the power play thanks to a BG slashing call, Gaffney, Nick Williams and Lucas Wahlin all had good chances to cash in and give UST the lead. However, Steinman shut down all three attempts to keep it 1-1.
At the 17:22 mark, Gaffney gave the Tommies that lead. Gaffney got pass from Wahlin at the left faceoff circle and one-timed the puck top shelf to give the Tommies a 2-1 advantage heading into the third period.
Even though the Tommies fell behind early, Gaffney said that they felt they were going to come out on top in the end.
“We’ve been in many tight games and we know how to play in tight games,” he said. “When we were down one and we had no worries and no issues. We believed in ourselves and we truly believed we’d come back and win this game. There was no question in our minds.”
The third period was almost all Tommies. UST padded its lead to 3-1 on a goal by Hayes Hundley at 2:46. Hundley sent a shot from the point through traffic that somehow snuck under Steinman’s pad and slid into the net.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure it went at first,” Hundley said. “There was so much traffic. It’s all about the net front presence. We had a bunch of guys clogging up the middle and it found its way in and fortunate enough to find the back of the net.”
Later at 4:19, Tommies forward Jake Braccini got a nice feed from Charlie Schoen on a rush and beat Steinman five-hole to push the lead to 4-1. Steinman was then pulled and replaced by Tyler Palmer.
A little more than a minute after the Braccini goal, Lucas Van Vliet scored on the power play, beating Palmer glove side to make it 5-1. After BG got one back on a goal by Norris at 9:34, Wahlin capped off the win with an empty netter at 14:46.
Right now, the Tommies sit at 5-6-2, and that’s probably not where they’d like to be right now. However, unlike some other teams in the CCHA, UST has a lot of freshmen in its lineup, and Blasi says his team is still learning how to play at the college level.
“If you would’ve asked me last week, I would’ve said going into last night’s game, I feel really good about our team,” he said. “Then after last night’s game, I was ready to jump off the cliff. But the guys have some resiliency. They care about what we’re doing. They’re gaining experience, especially our young defensemen. They’re gaining a ton of experience, and our guys up front are learning how to play at this level. It’s not easy. I don’t care how many games you played in junior hockey or how many meaningful games at that level, this is a different grind. It’s an everyday grind. It’s mentally exhausting and you have to be ready to go. I think the games give our guys an opportunity to just feel comfortable and gain confidence and hopefully, we start to execute on a consistent basis.”
The Tommies will travel to Houghton next weekend to play Michigan Tech.