Men's Hockey takes 5-0 home loss to No. 3-ranked Mavericks

No. 3-ranked Minnesota State received goals from five different players and had 10 players score points in Saturday night's 5-0 defeat of St. Thomas in CCHA men's hockey in Mendota Heights.

The Mavericks (11-3 overall, 7-1 CCHA) closed out a series sweep with shutout wins on Thursday on home ice (9-0) and here Saturday. MSU goalie Dryden McKay took his 86th career victory as he recorded nine saves and added to his NCAA-record career shutout total, now at 29.

A season-high sellout crown of just under 900 saw the Tommies (1-13, 1-9) trail just 1-0 after one period. But MSU scored twice 3:00 apart early in the second frame to build a cushion, and two third-period goals by the visitors closed out the scoring.

Tommie senior goalie Peter Thome stopped 28 of 33 shots and helped kill off five of six MSU power plays.

"They're pretty good," Coach Rico Blasi said on the CCHA leading Mavericks. "I thought we battled a little harder today. We did a few different things (on defense) that worked fairly well tonight. We still lost some battles on that front which (led to) their scoring. We turned the puck over on one -- you can't turn the puck over in the neutral zone against a good transiition team, and they made us pay. There was a bad (line) change (just before) another (goal), so (if we had) cleaned those up, maybe it's a one-goal or two-goal game down the stretch.

"We have to put things behind us and get ready to play Penn State, another top team in the country. There's no time to worry about what just happened, you can't do anything about it now. We just have to get back to work and get ready to play on Tuesday night."

St. Thomas is home Tuesday and Wednesday nights to face Penn State in non-conference play. The Nittany Lions split two against the Minnesota Gophers this weekend and are 7-6 on the season.

Next Event

Team Stats

Kyler Grundy

Nolan Sawchuk

Aaron Swanson

Matthew Jennings

Players Mentioned

Peter Thome