The Colorado College Tigers got third-period goals from Alex Kim and Peter Sejna as they extended their unbeaten streak to seven games with a 3-1 victory over Michigan Tech on Saturday night at MacInnes Arena.
“We buried our second chances, unlike last night,” said Kim. “We got it by their goaltender tonight, but he played well both nights. We just got a few lucky bounces and buried the puck.”
Trent Clark also scored for the Tigers (8-5-1, 4-5-1 WCHA), while Jeff Sanger made 27 saves. Colin Murphy scored for Tech (4-8-2, 1-7-2) and Cam Ellsworth made 29 stops.
The Huskies grabbed a 1-0 lead on Colin Murphy’s power-play goal 5:11 into the game.
After Tech set up its power-play unit, Brad Patterson sent a pass from the left point to Murphy at the bottom of the right circle. Murphy patiently waited until Sanger when down before roofing the shot.
The Tigers evened things up on Clark’s workmanlike goal at 8:47 of the middle period. Clark set up at the top of the crease, knocked Jason Jozsa’s shot from the point down, and then batted the puck past Ellsworth.
Kim’s goal 9:04 into the third snapped a 1-1 tie and put the Tigers in control.
Jesse Heerema picked up a loose puck after Tech defenseman Justin Brown had mishandled a pass, skated into the Huskies’ zone and put a shot on net from the left circle. A sliding Ellsworth made the save but left a huge rebound for Kim, who gained control of the loose puck and calmly backhanded a shot into the open net.
“The kid tried to make the play we asked him to make,” said Michigan Tech head coach Mike Sertich of the mishap by Brown. “It didn’t work out. We were too linear and he mishandled the puck. He tried it. That’s the main thing and we’ll be better because of it.”
The Tigers got an insurance goal at the 15:07 mark as Kim fed Peter Sejna for a pretty goal.
Kim sent a perfect pass from the right boards across the slot to Sejna, who deked Ellsworth and backhanded the puck into the net.
“Colorado College is a very good hockey team,” said Sertich. “I don’t think we have any reason to hang our heads. If we get efforts like that we’ll be fine.”
The Tigers will now get ready for a crucial home series with St. Cloud State next weekend.
“First of all, we’ve got to try to get ourselves in position to be a fifth-place team and that’s why these two points are huge,” said Owens. “We’ve got St. Cloud as our only series left until Christmas break and we’ve got to find a way to get some points there. We just plod along. This league is so strong you really can’t look ahead more than one week.”
Michigan Tech is off next weekend. The Huskies will play Northern Michigan in a nonconference, home-and-home series the following weekend.
