St. Dom’s copes with the flu to beat Waterville 6-0.
By Justin Pelletier
Staff Writer

WATERVILLE – The test included a physical game, a solid, blue-line savvy opponent and a missing head coach. As has been the case so far this season, St. Dom’s passed with flying colors.

Five different Saints scored and a total of 10 skaters had at least one point as St. Dom’s cruised to a 6-0 win over Waterville at Colby College’s Alfond Arena Tuesday.

The Saints moved to 3-0 while Waterville drops to 1-4. Brandon Gervais made 13 saves for St. Dom’s, which kept the Purple Panthers to a season-low shot total.

“That was a good win without Bob (Boucher) here,” said Saints assistant John Pleau. “We forechecked well and we had solid contributions from all four lines. We should probably have capitalized on a few more opportunities, though.”

The flu was a factor for both teams. Waterville’s biggest scoring threat, captain Marc Labbe, was a game-time scratch because of the illness, and St. Dom’s played without its head coach, Bob Boucher, who was also sick.

“When you lose someone like Marc, who is your leader, it’s hard to play like you normally do,” said Waterville coach Norm Gagne. “We have a lot of capable seniors on this team, but Marc is a big loss for us.”

Despite being outshot 9-6 in the opening frame, the Saints carried a 2-0 advantage into the first intermission.

Shawn Longley opened the scoring at 10:41 of the first period when he picked up a rebound off of Waterville netminder Ryan Cook and flipped it into an open net. A.J. Babineau and Mike Carpenter picked up the assists after making a nice give-and-go play to get the puck into the zone and on net.

“I just picked up the junk in front,” said Longley. “It was a lucky bounce, but those still count.”

Kyle Tyburski added the Saints’ second goal of the opening frame at 12:57 on a missed shot by Ryan Guerin. Six seconds prior, Steve Nadeau nearly had a goal, but his deke that left Cook prone on the ice hit the post. The puck stayed alive and squirted over to Guerin, who fed Tyburski.

Waterville managed to hang with St. Dom’s in the early going despite playing with what coach Norm Gagne called “an arm tied behind its back” from the start.

“It showed that Marc was missing,” said Gagne. “We had some chances in the early going that we probably should have taken advantage of, but after that, we seemed to quit. We didn’t play solid Waterville hockey tonight.”

In the second period, the lack of offensive depth started to show in the Purple Panthers’ attack. Waterville managed just two shots, both coming 10 minutes in on a quick flurry in front of Gervais.

The Saints, meanwhile, continued to press in the offensive zone. Josh Dwinal scored at 5:34 of the second to push the St. Dom’s lead to 3-0 thanks to a nice passing exchange between John Rutt and Guerin.

With only eight seconds left in the period, Tyler Martin slapped home a rebound goal off of a Rutt offering to pad the lead, making it 4-0.

Pat O’Neil and Rutt capped the scoring in the third, both scoring on nice passes to the front of the net. Waterville netminder Joseph Fonollosa came in to relieve Cook at 4:03 of the third period and stopped all nine shots he faced.