PORTLAND – A year or two from now, all Thursday’s game against Cheverus will be is another number in the loss column near the end of one of St. Dom’s more bizarre seasons in its illustrious hockey existence.
It sure didn’t feel like a loss, though.
Cheverus defenseman Paul Morrison cheated in from the point, found an opening in the high slot and drilled a one-timer past St. Dom’s netminder Nate Brown with just 1:02 to play in the third period to lift the Stags past the Saints 4-3 in a gut-wrenching, up-and-down battle at Portland Ice Arena.
“It’s the hardest I’ve seen a lot of these guys play in a while,” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau. “It was kind of obvious, some of the freshman mistakes, but for the most part we were pretty consistent the whole game. I haven’t seen Cheverus play this hard in a while, either, and I’ve seen them play six or seven games this year.”
Cheverus, meanwhile, avenged one of its two losses on the season. The Stags had fallen to the Saints 3-1 at the Colisee on Jan. 11.
“I thought this was going to overtime for a while,” said Cheverus coach Jack Lowry. “Brown played super tonight. I thought territorially we held an advantage, but anytime these two teams get together, there’s such a rivalry and St. Dom’s has that tradition where they just expect to win. They’re never out of a game.”
Morrison had a hard time wiping a grin from his face following the game. His goal was opportunistic, taking advantage of a shorter St. Dom’s bench and a set of tired forwards.
“Alex (Arthur) saw me sneaking in and when I saw him I knew I had to pinch,” said Morrison. “I wanted to go to the right because he was coming from the left. I just wanted to get it on net and there might have been a rebound.”
From the outset, Cheverus had one glaring advantage – a full lineup. The Saints, who have battled injury after injury this season, were short five players, including starting netminder Brady Blackman and first-line forward Tom Gosselin. Blackman was sidelined because he broke a school rule, and Gosselin was out with an injury.
“We should just change our school colors to khaki and green,” said Pleau. “We’re a M.A.S.H. unit this year. It’s been one injury after another. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Cheverus looked like it would blow St. Dom’s out of the building early, launching 10 shots to the Saints’ one in the early going. The Stags managed just one goal, though, while hitting the right post, crossbar and left post once each.
“It could have been a much different game,” admitted Lowry. “They battled hard, though.”
In the second, the Saints woke up, and both teams seemed to abandon any thoughts of defense. Tyler Martin tied the game at one at 5:32 of the middle frame. Jon Anton notched his first of the game at 8:26 for Cheverus, but Alex Pleau countered 14 seconds later to again knot the score.
Anton scored again at 9:48, only to watch Alex Tyburski again tie the game at 13:52 with a wrist shot from the slot.
“The defense did definitely seem to disappear but both teams took advantage of mistakes,” said Lowry. “In a game like this, the team that makes the last mistake is going to be the team that pays.”
The teams traded scoring chances in the third, but neither could solve the two young goaltenders. Brown made 33 saves in the losing effort for the Saints, while freshman Ryan McQuaid stopped 23 of 26 to earn the win for Cheverus.
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