LEWISTON – Alex Tyburski has a few moves up his sleeve when it comes to breakaways, but the St. Dom’s forward wasn’t prepared to take on a goaltender who was flat on his back when he took the puck in from the neutral zone unabated Wednesday night.
“I was just thinking, What is he doing?'” said Tyburski. “I just went around him.”
Tyburski’s goal at 7:41 of the first period was enough – just enough – for the Saints as they skated away with a 1-0 win over the visiting Thornton Academy Golden Trojans at the Colisee.
“We played a great game,” said Thornton coach Greg Cloutier. “We outshot them and kind of outplayed them, and our goalie had a good shot at saving that breakaway if he didn’t fall down.”
The fact that netminder Dan Laskey fell backwards as he made the cut at the top of his crease didn’t seem like it would be that big a deal so early in the game, but neither team was able to get anything more out of their offenses.
“Our choices for shots were not where they should have been,” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau. “We tried a lot of low percentage shots, and that needs to be better. They’re a good team, though, no doubt about it. They made us work.”
Thornton had its chance to tie the game late when the Saints were caught running around in their own end in the final two minutes of the game, but St. Dom’s netminder Nate Brown held tough, once stopping a breakaway up the right side and on another occasion stopping a difficult, screened shot from the right point.
“All night I was reading them really well,” said Brown. “I was just trying to fight to see around everybody, and at the end I saw the puck go to the right side, and I was able to get my pad on it.”
Thornton lost a chance to skate with two extra players in the final 35 seconds of the game, too, when St. Dom’s lined up five skaters instead of four with a player in the penalty box. The officials never caught on and the game finished at 6-on-5 with Laskey on the bench.
Laskey finished with 26 saves, while Brown stopped all 27 shots he faced.
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