University of St. Thomas Athletics
0-4-0, 0-2-0
Northern Michigan
2-0-0, 2-0-0
Men's Hockey hangs tough through two periods but falls to Northern Michigan
10/9/2021 8:49:00 PM | Men's Hockey
Marquette, Mich. - The St. Thomas men's hockey team held a 3-2 lead in the second period before Northern Michigan scored six unanswered goals to hand the Tommies an 8-3 loss. St. Thomas fell to 0-4-0 on the season and 0-2-0 in CCHA action.
St. Thomas and Northern Michigan traded goals in the first period, with the Wildcats jumping out to an early 1-0 lead only 1:30 minutes into the contest. Just under five minutes later, freshman winger Kyler Grundy scored his first goal of the season. The Wildcats and Tommies exchanged goals later in the period, with a power play goal by Grundy with only 14 seconds remaining in the period to tie the game at 2-2 heading into the first intermission.
Only 28 seconds into the second period, the Tommies secured their first lead of the game, 3-2 off a goal by sophomore Lucas McGregor, his first of the season. The Wildcats scored a power play goal 3:57 into the second period to even the game at 3-3.
"I thought we did a nice job again on the special teams," said Head Coach Rico Blasi on his team being tied 3-3 through the first two periods. "I thought we were putting pucks behind them early. We did a good job of staying within ourselves, so that was really the first two periods. 3-3 hockey game, right were you want to be on the road going into the third. We made a few adjustments in the third. We had some miscues and all of the sudden it's 5-3, 6-3 and kind of got away from us a little bit."
"You have to learn how to win you have to learn how to play in the third period. You have to learn how to execute. It was another step forward for us. Now we have to understand when you get to the third period, things can't change and we're still taking care of the details of the game.
"We've done some good things in stretches. Our power play looks good, our penalty kill looked good until the end there. A lot of good things we're doing in spurts, we just haven't been able to put it together for three periods or do it for long stretches of time. Most of it are things we're doing to ourselves. We're trying to make plays that aren't there or that we're not quick enough to make, like forcing pucks in areas where there's no need. You have guys trying to do too much because they care, and then good teams come back at you and make you pay.
"If we can clean those things and control the puck better, we will be in a lot of games this year, but right now we're trying to figure things out and trust each other. These are all necessary things we have to go through in the process. You are not going to show up and just win a game, you have to earn it. There are no shortcuts for St. Thomas. We're going to go through this head on, we're not going to tip toe around it. We're going to work to win. We're going to earn it."
In the third period, Northern Michigan scored five unanswered goals to secure the 8-3 win and improve to 2-0-0 on the season and 2-0-0 in CCHA competition.
The Tommies continue their road stand next weekend as they travel to Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., to face Lake Superior State in CCHA action.
