WINONA, Minn. — Leaving the Don Roberts Ice Rink having not scored a goal on Friday night left the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team in a rather foul mood.
And the Cardinals turned up the offensive heat a notch or two in the teams' Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rematch Saturday night — scoring a pair of goals nine seconds apart early in the first period.
And while the Cardinals proved to be good out of the gate, they also displayed an impressive — albeit nerve-wracking — finishing kick.
Colin Tushie (Prior Lake, Minn.) scored his second goal of the game with 11.9 seconds remaining in regulation to earn the Cardinals a come-from-behind 4-4 tie with the Gusties, and the sophomore followed that up by scoring one of SMU's three shootout goals to help earn the Cardinals the extra conference point.
After failing to net a goal on any of its 20 chances in Friday's 4-0 loss to the Gusties, Saint Mary's was much more efficient on Saturday, scoring on its first two shots on goal.
Nikita Sheberov (Obninsk, Russia) got the Cardinals off and running, netting his second of the season at 6:21 of the first period, and — nine seconds later —
Nick Kiemel (Colorado Springs, Colo.) made it 2-0 with his second tally of the year.
Gustavus would chop the Cardinals' lead in half before the period ended, converting on the last of its three first-period power-play opportunities, but thanks to
Matt Sankner's (Pennington, N.J.) 16-save performance in the game's opening 20 minutes, Saint Mary's would go into the intermission with a 2-1 advantage.
Saint Mary's continued make the most of its scoring opportunities to open the second period, scoring on just their third shot of the period — coming off the stick of Tushie — to regain a 2-0 edge, 3-1.
Forty-one seconds later, however, the Gusties would answer — taking a page out of SMU's efficiency playbook, as Jack Suchy beat Sankner on GAC's second shot on goal of the period at 8:11 to once again whittle the SMU lead to one, 3-2.
Sankner wasn't nearly as busy as he was in the opening period, but the junior made several key saves during a late GAC power play — to keep the Cardinals out front, only to have Grant Ellings sneak one past him with 13 seconds remaining to pull GAC even, 3-3 heading to the third.
The Gusties did not waste much time grabbing their first lead of the game to open the third period, as Drew Holt snuck a wrist shot past a screened Sankner on the power play just 1:45 into the frame.
Gustavus maintained that one-goal lead until the waning seconds, when Tushie came up big for the Cardinals, scoring his second of the night in the waning seconds of the period to send the game into overtime.
Neither team was able to net the game-winner in the five-minute extra session, and Saint Mary's scored on all three of its shootout chances — getting goals from Tushie,
Nick Kiemel, and
Nathan Solis (Saline, Mich.) to lock up the extra conference point.
The Cardinals (1-4-1 MIAC, 2-8-1 overall) step out of conference play for their final game of 2023, returning to the Saint Mary's Ice Arena next Friday for a 7:05 p.m. nonconference matchup with the University of Dubuque.
