Game Summary

WINONA, Minn. — Take away the first three minutes of Saturday's Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game and the Saint Mary's Univeristy men's hockey team had St. John's on the ropes.

Scratch that.

Take away the game's first two shots, and the The Johnnies' nine-game MIAC winning streak — dating back to a 5-3 loss to Bethel on Feb. 4, 2005 — would have been in serious jeopardy.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, there is no do-over rule in college hockey, and those first two Johnnie shots — goals by Tom Freeman and Ian Ross — could noit be taken off the board as Saint John's completed its conference sweep of the Cardinals, winning 4-1 at the SMU Ice Arena.

"You have to give (Saint John's) a lot of credit — they are a very skilled team that works extremely hard at both ends of the ice," said SMU coach Don Olson. "We talked after last night's game (in which SMU gave up seven straight goals in falling 7-3) about the importance of getting off on the right foot, and before we can even get into any kind of rhythm, (Saint John's) was up 2-0.

"We just aren't a good enough team right now to be spotting teams the caliber of Saint John's two early goals like that."

And they were early goals.

Freeman got the Johnnies' on the board at the 2:12 mark of the first period, as the Johnnie sophomore took a feed from Bille Luger and beat SMU goalie Nick Berra (St. Louis, Mo.) with the game's first shot. Thirty-seven seconds later, it was 2-0 as Ian Ross completed a picture- perfect passing play by tipping a Jordan Swan pass past Berra.

Luger pushed the SJU lead to 3-0 seven minutes into the second period, before the Cardinals finally got on the board on Adam Gill's (Rochester, Minn.) team-leading seventh goal of the season eight minutes later.

"We did not play exceptionally well in that first period," said Olson, whose team was outshot 15-3 in the opening 20 minutes and 38-15 for the game. "I thought our effort in the second and third periods was much better, but in this conference, against the competition we play, you aren't going to be successful unless you play at your highest level for the entire 60 minutes.

"(Friday night) we played well for about half the game, and, take away the first period, today's game was a pretty even game," continued Olson, whose team dropped to 2-8-1 overall heading into the Christmas break. "We just have to find a way to get that type of effort all game long."