AUBURN —St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette was looking for his team to show some fight after a rough stretch over the holidays dropped it back to .500.

The Saints still played more uneven hockey than their coach would have liked Thursday night against Edward Little. But. having lost three of their last four, everyone was happy to put it in the win column. St. Dom’s charged out of the gate for three goals in the first period and then did just enough to head off EL’s second period response for a 5-2 victory Thursday night at Ingersoll Arena.

 “It was a win. I mean, it wasn’t pretty tonight,” Ouellette said. “Unfortunately, we only played one really good period and kind of sat back after that.”

Trevar Haefele scored a pair of goals and Alex Parker and Donne Larrivee each chpped in a goal and an assist for the Saints. Mat Gordon and Drew Lupardo netted goals for the Red Eddies (3-3).

The Saints (4-3) dominated the first period, outshooting the the Red Eddies, 9-4. They didn’t have anything to show for it until a Lupardo penalty for interference put them back at even strength nine minutes in. That’s when a hustle play by junior defenseman Ryan Lussier hustled to keep the puck in the Saints’ offensive zone during the four-on-four set up Haefele’s and St. Dom’s’ first goal at 9:19.

“I broke down the boards, the puck hit off my stick and then Trevar picked it up and got the puck in. He just buried it,” Lussier said. 

“He stepped up tonight,” Ouellette said of Lussier. “He’s a kid that really hasn’t seen a lot of ice time, and tonight he showed he was hungry for it. Hopefully, he sent a message to some of our other players.” 

With Lupardo still in the box, senior defenseman Donne Larrivee made it 2-0 with one of three Dom’s power play goals, a slapper from the right point. Parker added the third goal 1:03 later.

“I think we just came out and used our speed, got to the puck quick. It took us a while, but we finally started to put the puck on net,” Ouellette said. “You do that enough, eventually something good is going to happen.”

Lupardo quickly got EL back in the game with his goal just 1:07 into the second period. Gordon kept the momentum with his power play marker at 2:51 to make it 3-2, but the Saints let some of the air out of the balloon when Keene poked a rebound through EL goalie Rich Belanger’s legs for a power play goal and a 4-2 lead at 11:43.

 “They scored three power play goals tonight. They took advantage of a couple of mistakes that we made,” EL coach Craig Latuscha said. “Obviously, their top two lines are pretty fast and it took us a little while to adjust to it. The first period was a tough period for us,”

Haefele added an empty-netter in the third period.