By Ryan Stieg
ST. PAUL, Minn. — When a team is facing a quality, nationally-ranked opponent, one of the worst things that it can do is fall apart mentally when facing adversity. However, that’s what happened to the St. Thomas men’s hockey team Saturday night.
After tying No. 15 Providence 2-2 the previous night, the Tommies held a 4-1 lead during the second period of the rematch, but then they surrendered four unanswered goals and ended up losing 7-4.
“When they scored their second goal, I thought our team really, I’m not sure what the right word is, but we lost our composure,” Tommies head coach Rico Blasi said. “We weren’t picking up assignments, our detail wasn’t very good, and they took advantage of it. Obviously, they’re a good hockey team and they’re going to smell blood. We took a foolish penalty and turned way too many pucks over and they capitalized. Usually, that’s not a good formula for success.
“We were trying to push in the third and we did, but they did a good job of keeping everything to the outside. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to get better in a lot of areas right now. When you play good teams like that, they expose you for some of the things that you need to work on, and they certainly did that.”
The game started rough for the Tommies as the Friars scored just 20 seconds into the first period. Friars center Beau Jelsma skated to the right post and passed the puck to a waiting Clint Levens, who snapped it into the open net to make it 1-0.
Providence stayed in control for most of the period as it clamped down on the Tommies and prevented them from getting any quality scoring chances. That is until the final two minutes when UST caught fire offensively. First, at the 18:07 mark, Tommies defenseman Hayes Hundley fired a blast from the point past Friars goalie Philip Svedeback to tie things up at 1-1. Just under a minute later, UST captain Lucas Wahlin tipped a shot in the slot to give the Tommies the lead and then 11 seconds later, Bauer Berry sent a shot on net that beat Svedeback to put UST up 3-1. Svedebeck was then pulled in favor of backup goalie Jack Parsons.
“We were playing good hockey,” Blasi said. “We were detailed. We were getting pucks behind them. We were hunting pucks really well. We were getting good stick detail, and we were getting pucks on net. When you get pucks on net with traffic, good things happen and for some reason after we made it 4-1, we didn’t want to do that anymore. We started to kind of look at the other person to do the dirty work if you will, and sometimes when you do that and you keep doing that, it’s hard to go back. So, it’s a lesson we’re going to have to learn, and we’ll learn it and move on.”
It appeared as if the Tommies might break the game open early in the second as Alex Gaffney scored a shorthanded goal to put them up 4-1 at 3:12. With Parsons trying to corral the puck behind the Friars net, Gaffney stole it from him and tapped it into the wide-open net before Parsons could get back in time.
Then things went into the opposite direction for UST as the Friars scored three times in less than two minutes to tie the game at 4-4. Kale McCallum got the rally started as he skated near the high slot and fired a shot past Tommies goalie Carsen Musser to cut the deficit to 4-2 at 8:07. At 9:17, Will Elger got a pass in front from Julius Sumpf and flipped it past Musser to make it 4-3 and then 24 seconds later, Hudson Malinoski tapped in a rebound to tie it at 4-4.
With the Friars on the power play at 15:33, Jonathan Fauchon gave them the lead. After Logan Sawyer made it a nice move in the slot, he passed the puck backwards while falling to Fauchon, who snapped it past Musser to make it 5-4 Providence going into the third period.
“We needed a kill, and we didn’t get it,” Blasi said. “It’s all fine and dandy when you’re scoring shorties, but our power play has to get better and our PK can’t give up easy power play goals. We lost our composure as a group. There’s not one individual that I’m looking at. We’ve got to get better.”
Things got worse for the Tommies in the final frame. Down by one at the 9:50 mark, UST gave up another goal, this time off the stick of John Mustard. With the Friars on the power play, Mustard led a rush up ice and beat Musser five-hole to increase the lead to 6-4. At that point, Musser was replaced by Will Ingemann.
The goalie change didn’t reverse the Tommies’ fortunes though as Graham Garnache put the finishing touch on the Friars’ comeback. With the puck in the Providence zone, McCallum sent the puck down the ice where Logan Sawyer chased it down just before the puck crossed the line for an icing call. Sawyer then sent the puck into the slot to a charging Garnache, who fired it past Ingemann to make it 7-4.
The Tommies will play rival Minnesota State in a home and home series next weekend. UST will host the Mavericks Friday at 7 p.m. and then travel to Mankato Saturday for a 6 p.m. puck drop.