PLATTSBURGH — Steve Moffat was expecting his Plattsburgh State men’s hockey team to have its hands full Friday night with St. Olaf (Minn.).
And that was the case.
The top-ranked Cardinals (7-0) held on for a 2-1 victory over the Oles (4-4-1) in the opening round of the LayerEight Shootout at the Stafford Ice Arena.
Plattsburgh will oppose Norwich University, a 7-1 winner over Middlebury College, in Saturday night’s 7 p.m. championship game. The third-place game between St. Olaf and Middlebury will be held at 3:30 p.m.
St. Olaf doesn’t score a lot of goals, but doesn’t give up a lot.
In fact, the Oles’ 6-6 goaltender Lukas Haugen came into the contest with a 1.17 goals-against-average and .960 save percentage.
“We played well, holding them to 20 shots on goal,” Moffat said. “It was a nip and tuck game, and they play hard.
“I was happy with our performance and I liked our competitive effort. We needed to have a hard-fought game like this where we play well. They (St. Olaf) are going to win a lot of games this season.”
The game was scoreless until the Cardinals took a 1-0 lead at 16:51 of the first period when Bennett Stockdale deflected Lonan Bulger’s shot into the net for a power-play goal.
“After the first seven or eight minutes of the game, we started to get pucks in deep,” Moffat said. “They clogged the middle of the ice pretty well on us.”
Stockdale added his second goal of the contest when he tucked the puck into the net from in close at 15:13 of the second stanza to give Plattsburgh a 2-0 advantage.
“Bennett was very good,” Moffat said. “He had the puck on his stick a lot.”
It stayed the way until the 18:33 mark of the third. St. Olaf had pulled Haugen for an extra attacker and Tyler Cooper’s goal brought the Oles to within one.
St. Olaf was able to apply pressure in the final minute of play, but the Cardinals withstood it.
Both goaltenders — Haugen and the Cardinals’ Eli Shiller — came up with some key stops or it could have been a higher scoring game.
“Both goalies played well and made the saves when they had to,” Moffat said. “We were fortunate to get two past their goalie and get one more than they did against us.”
Shiller and the Plattsburgh State penalty killers did their job as the Oles weren’t able to score on five power-play chances.
NORWICH 7
MIDDLEBURY 1
Seven different players scored goals and 13 players had at least a point as the Cadets (5-2-1) defeated the Panthers (0-2-1).
Holden Doggett and Brady Harroun tallied in the first period for Norwich, Cooper Bertrand and Patrick O’Neal in the second, and Clark Kerner, Joe Nagle and Devon Thibodeau in the third.
Sami Molu stopped 17 of 18 shots in the Cadets’ nets and allowed only a second-period goal to the Panthers’ Andrej Hromic.
—
Plattsburgh State 2, St. Olaf 1
STO 0 0 1 — 1
PSU 1 1 0 — 2
First period- 1, PSU, Stockdale ppg (Bulger, D’Addario), 16:51.
Second period- 2, PSU, Stockdale (Maia, B. Butler), 15:13.
Third period- 3, SO, Cooper (Sherman, Paniso), 18:33.
Shots on goal- Plattsburgh State, 31-20.
Saves- Haugen, SO, 29. Shiller, PSU, 19.
—
Norwich 7, Middlebury 1
MID 0 1 0 — 1
NOR 2 2 3 — 7
First period- 1, Nor, Doggett (Harroun, Thibodeau), 8:13. 2, Nor, Harroun (Doggett, Kerner), 18:07.
Second period- 3, Nor, Bertrand ppg (O’Mara), 6:47. 4, Midd, Hromic (Pastor), 7:04. 5, Nor, O’Neal ppg (Schmid), 17:48.
Third period- 6, Nor, Kerner, 4:09. 7, Nor, Nagle (Del Vecchio, Mackenzie), 7:20. 8, Nor, Thibodeau (Galotti), 13:21.
Shots on goal- Norwich, 32-18.
Saves- Giroux, Midd, 25. Molu, Nor, 17.