PROVIDENCE – On the surface, heading home with a pair of ties on the road after leading in each game might not seem ideal, but St. Lawrence coach Greg Carvel isn’t worried about it.
Saint Lawrence and Brown played to a 3-3 draw Saturday night at Meehan Arena. It was the second straight 3-3 tie for the Saints.
“We had chances late in the game to win and we didn’t [at Yale Friday], and tonight we took too many penalties and they scored five-on-four,” said Saints coach Greg Carvel, who missed much of the opening period after an errant puck caught him in the side of the face early in the game. “To say that we blew a lead … it’s tough to defend in that situation. I’m not upset. We’re a young team, so we’ve got to learn how to get a lead and hold a lead.”
Matt Wahl, Garnet Hathaway, and Dennis Roberston scored for Brown, while Gavin Bayreuther, Greg Carey, and Matt Carey had goals for Saint Lawrence. Matt Weninger had 33 saves for the Saints, while Tyler Steel had 27 for the Bears.
“After we scored the tying goal, they came out hard in the third and pushed back; we had to weather the storm a little bit,” said Robertson, whose power-play goal at 18:38 in the second period tied the game at three.
Brown held the Saints without a shot in overtime and missed a chance for the win when Joey de Concilys’ shot from inside the blue line went high and wide with just less than 10 seconds left to play.
For the second straight weekend, Steel drew the start on Saturday after senior Marco De Filippo started Friday for the Bears.
“We’ll let it play out this week in practice,” Whittet said of Brown’s goalie situation. “I thought Tyler did a really good job. I don’t think we helped him out a lot in the first, and he made a lot of great saves down the stretch. He’s very collected back there; he’s got a lot of confidence for a young guy.”
Trailing 3-2 after one, Brown had several chances to tie it in the second period. de Concilys missed a wide-open net midway through the period, while Nick Lappin appeared to have a five-on-three goal in the closing minutes of the frame, but Weninger was just able to bat it out before it crossed the goal line. Brown finally got the equalizer on Robertson’s blast from the point.
The Saints killed an early first-period tripping call against Riley Austin, but Brown took a 1-0 lead on Wahl’s wrister from the point at 7:14. Saint Lawrence tied it on Bayreuther’s power-play one-timer at 9:25.
Garnet Hathaway put Brown up 2-1 five minutes later, but that lead was short-lived, as Greg Carey’s power-play goal tied it at two at 17:47. The senior forward took a pass from his brother Matt near the top of the right circle, swung across toward the ice, and sniped a shot into the back of the net at 17:48.
Matt Carey cleaned up a rebound at 19:11 to give the Saints the lead heading into intermission. Steel made the initial save, but lost control of the puck and couldn’t get up as Carey slammed it in.
“We were just letting guys that can rip pucks, the Carey brothers and the Bayreuther kid, just step into them with nobody around them, and that can’t happen,” Whittet said.
The game marked the return of Bears defender Kyle Quick, who missed all of last season with an injury.
“He hasn’t been around in a game for a long time,” Whittet said. “There’s a lot of rust that goes into that. I thought he did a good job for his first game.”
