Niagara University, N.Y.—The Niagara Hockey teams returned to the ice on Thursday night as they opened their final non-conference series of the 2022-23 season against St. Lawrence. The Purple Eagles came back from a one goal deficit to defeat the Saint 4-3.
Game Recap
First Period

• The first period was full of physical play and back and forth play. Neither team solved each other until 14 minutes into the period. After a Niagara turnover in the neutral zone the Saint counter attacked and took a perfect that beat Niagara goalie Chad Veltri.
• Niagara generated seven shots in the first period while St. Lawrence took nine shots on goal. Noah Carlin was the only Purple Eagle with multiple shots in the first as he had two, five other Purple Eagles had shots.
• The Purple Eagles blocked four shots with Carlin turning away two and adding to his AHA lead in blocked shots.
• In the faceoff circle, the Purple Eagles won 11 of 21 while Jason Pineo went 5-3 at the dot.

Second Period

• The middle frame was full of goals as the two teams combined for four goals including three from the Purple Eagles.
• Just 3:45 into the period, Ryan Naumovski scored his fourth goal of the season on the power play after a few quick passes from Lars Rodne and Albin Nilsson who is now on a three game point streak.
• At the 6:13 mark of the second the Purple Eagles took the lead. Casey Carreau flipped the puck out of the zone and Jason Pineo went to work. Pineo fended out multiple defenders and slid the puck to Oliver Gauthier who was on the rush with Pineo. Gauthier made no mistake and scored his sixth goal of the season to put the Purple Eagles up 2-1.
• The Purple Eagles weren't done in the second period, with the two teams playing 4v4 Glebs Prohorenkovs and Jordan Wishman were on the rush together. Wishman made a quick drop pass and Prohorenkovs ripped a wrister into the top corner of the net for his fourth of the season.
• Before the buzzer ended the period, St. Lawrence scored to make it a 3-2 game heading into the third period.

Third Period

• Niagara picked up where they left off in the third period as Ryan Cox extended his point streak just 1:22 into the third to make it 4-2 Niagara. Cox took a pass from Shane Ott and used a quick release for his team leading ninth goal of the year. Cox now has points in four straight games, Rodne picked up his second assists of the game on the play.
• With just over a minute remaining in the third period, the Saints pulled their goalie and got a 6v5 goal with just three seconds remaining in the game.
• In the third period, the Purple Eagles had just three shots but blocked eight shots as a team.

Niagara Notes

• Veltri earned his 10^th win of the season as he made 25 saves for the Purple Eagles. It was his 34^th career win.
• As a team the Purple Eagles blocked 15 shots with 12 different players blocking a shot.
• Niagara improves to 4-6-1 all-time against St. Lawrence.
• Both the Saints and Purple Eagles won 30 draws on the night while both Nilsson and Pineo won nine draws each.
• The Purple Eagles are 6-1-0 this season in non-conference play which includes a 3-0-0 record against ECAC teams. Niagara has the best non-conference record in Atlantic Hockey and has six of the 23 non-conference wins for Atlantic Hockey. Niagara has a 3-1-0 record against the NCHC, the conference as a whole is 4-6-0 against the NCHC.
• Niagara was 1-5 on the power play with five shots while St. Lawrence was 1-6 with six shots.
• The Purple Eagles improve to 9-0-1 this season when leading after two periods. They are also 2-0-0 when faceoffs are even.
• Niagara is also 8-0-1 when they score four or more goals in a game this season.

 
Up Next

• The Purple Eagles make the return trip to St. Lawrence on Saturday as they take on the Saints at 7 PM.