LEWISTON – With four players, including St. Dom’s netminder Nate Brown, piled in the back of the Saints’ net, it took officials a few seconds to find the puck before ruling it had crossed the goal line.
When they did, a state of disbelief came over the St. Dom’s bench and in the stands behind it. With 6:30 to play in the third period, St. Dom’s took its second three-goal lead of the night. With 12 seconds to play, however, as Chris Carver celebrated amid the pile of players, Edward Little clung to one last gasp, having again pulled to within one goal of the Saints.
Relief replaced the Saints’ disbelief, though, as the final seconds ticked off harmlessly, allowing St. Dom’s to skate away with a 7-6 win over the Eddies in a matinee at the Colisee on Monday.
“Five-on-five we were just dominating, scoring almost when we wanted to,” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau, “but it didn’t happen enough. It’s a very frustrating game when you have it filled with penalties like that.”
Tom Gosselin and Alex Tyburski scored two goals each and Dustin Oberlander earned three assists to lead the Saints’ offense through a wild and at times sloppy contest. Cam Robichaud and Billy Brewster led a balanced Edward Little offense with a goal and two assists each.
Robichaud, a junior and Edward Little’s captain, had some extra jump in his stride Monday as he played against many of his friends with whom he played at St. Dom’s as a freshman.
“He started it out, he led it, he did a little pre-game speech like usual, but this one had a little bit of umph’ behind it because there’s a little bit of history there,” said EL coach Craig Latuscha.
“He had a lot of incentives tonight, a lot more than we had,” said Pleau. “He wanted to kill us single-handedly, and he almost did.”
The Saints built an early 3-0 lead with goals from Tyler Martin, who had a goal and three assists, Gosselin and Nick Stalford.
“Starting off 3-0 again in the hole like always is killing us,” said Latuscha. “Someday we’ll wake up here and put a couple of goals in the net before they start scoring.”
The Saints stagnated, though, and allowed the Red Eddies to creep back into the game.
“We weren’t focused at all after it was 3-0,” said Pleau. “It was a chippy game, and we let them back into the game by taking penalties. It was a good lesson learned, though.”
EL pulled to within one at 3-2 on second-period goals from Nick Merrill and Robichaud, and after Zach Ward scored to put the Saints ahead 4-2, Kevin Smith scored to again move the Eddies to within one at 4-3.
Edward Little completed the comeback and made it a 12-minute game when Brewster knotted the score on a perfect feed from Robichaud 2:42 into the third period.
The Saints again responded, this time with three in a row. Tyburski’s two goals bookended Gosselin’s second as the Saints went ahead 7-4 with 6:35 to play.
Corey Binette made it 7-5, though, at 9:05, and Carver’s messy goal in front with netminder Adam Loudermilk off for an extra skater pulled EL again to within one.
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