By
DONNY NADEAU
Saint Mary's Sports Information Director
ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Imagine that … the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's hockey team found itself immersed in yet another overtime game.
In fact, for the third straight game, the Cardinals — who played to 4-4 and 3-3 deadlocks in its previous two contests — found themselves headed to overtime Saturday afternoon in their rematch with Saint John's at the National Hockey Center.
This time around, however, there would be no tie —
Ryan Stoynich (Calgary, Alberta) made sure of that.
Stoynich scored his second goal of the season just 29 seconds into overtime, lifting the Cardinals to a 4-3 win over the Johnnies — and giving Saint Mary's five of a possible six points in the teams' two-game conference series.
The Cardinals, who have now had 11 of their first 12 games decided by two goals or less — including eight decided by one goal or less and six that have gone into overtime — struck first, scoring the only goal of the first period on
Jack Hatton's fourth of the season.
Saint Mary's added a pair of second-period goals — the first by
Tyson Liverance (Burford, Ontario), who assisted on Hatton's first-period goal, and the second by
Seth Kamrass (Peachtree Corners, Ga.) — as the Cardinal took what appeared to be a comfortable 3-0 lead.
The Johnnies made things uncomfortable, however, rattling off three unanswered goals — one by Tanner Dufault at 16:01 of the second period and two by Brady Heppner in a two-minute span early in the third — to force the overtime period.
Nick Nast (Oxnard, Calif.) picked up the win in goal for the Cardinals, stopping 24 of the Johnnies' 27 shots, while Andrew Lindgren made 15 saves in 33 minutes of work, before being replaced by Mac Berglove, who stopped four Cardinal shots.
The Cardinals (1-3-2 MIAC, 1-8-3 overall) are back in action next weekend, returning home to the Saint Mary's Ice Arena for a pair of nonconference games against UW-Superior. Saint Mary's and UW-Superior will square off at 7 p.m. on Friday night, before returning for a 3 p.m. matinee the following day.
