St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud, Minn. - (VIDEO INTERVIEW AT END OF STORY) The St. Cloud State University men's hockey team (2-2-2, 1-0-1 WCHA) gained its first WCHA victory of the 2009-10 season with a solid 4-2 triumph over #14/18 Minnesota Duluth on Oct. 24, at the National Hockey Center in St. Cloud.

 

The victory helped the Huskies gain a three-point WCHA weekend against the Bulldogs, as they prepare for an upcoming weekend trip on Oct. 30-31 against Michigan Tech in Houghton, Mich.

 

The Huskies relied on a pair of shorthanded goals in the contest to ice the win.  Sophomore forward Drew LeBlanc, who hails from the Duluth suburb of Hermantown, charted SCSU's first shorthanded goal at 3:36 of the second period with helpers from sophomore forward Jordy Christain (Moorhead) and junior defender Brett Barta (Moorhead).

 

The game winner was also produced on the shorthand, as sophomore Jared Festler (Little Falls) scored at 10:27 of the second with a single assist from sophomore defender Oliver Lauridsen (Gentofte, Denmark).  To ice the contest, SCSU junior forward Tony Mosey (Prior Lake) added a power play goal at 19:45 of the second period with assists from senior defender Garrett Raboin (Detroit Lakes) and junior forward Garrett Roe (Vienna, Va.).

 

To open the contest, senior forward Ryan Lasch (Lake Forest, Calif.) scored his second goal of the season at 3:17 of the first period.  Roe had the lone assist on the play.  Of note, Lasch now has 61 goals in his career at SCSU and ranks 6th in the team record along with Tyler Arnason.  Lasch also has 137 career points as a Husky.

 

Roe's two assists tonight pushes his career totals to 98 points (36g/62a) as a Husky.

 

Minnesota Duluth broke the shutout at 10:12 of the first period with a power play goal by Rob Bordson.  Assists were provided by Jack Connolly and goalie Brady Hjelle.  UMD completed the scoring in the third period with another power play goal at 2:54 by Drew Akins.  Trent Palm and Bordson had assists on the play.

 

In the game, UMD had 33 shots and SCSU added 27 shots in the game.  On the advantage, SCSU was 1-of-7 and UMD was 2-of-7.  A penalty filled night, UMD had 10 penalties for 23 minutes and SCSU had 11 penalties for 25 minutes.  A rare penalty shot was called against SCSU, after Craig Gaudet was whistled for covering the puck in the crease.  On the penalty shot, Justin Fountaine was stopped with a huge save by junior netminder Dan Dunn (Oshawa, Ontario).

 

Dunn made 31 saves in the contest, while Hjelle had 19 saves in the first two periods of play.  Kenny Reiter finished the game for UMD with 4 saves in the third period.  Hjelle was the goalie of record for UMD, while Dunn gained his first victory of the season.

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