Hockey coaches always try to preach one thing: Play for 60 minutes.
St. Cloud State seemed to take Colgate lightly, and the Raiders made them pay.
Joe Wilson and Evan Peterson found the net in the first period and a Kyle Baun goal in the third period provided insurance as the No. 6 Colgate Raiders defeated the No. 7 St. Cloud State Huskies, 3-1, Friday night at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
Coming off a second straight conference championship and second straight appearance in a regional championship game, the Huskies did not play a complete game. Colgate came flying out of the gates, got its forecheck going, took the lead early, and really put SCSU on their heels.
“We have no excuses,” said Huskies defenseman Tim Daly. “We were prepared all week with practice, did the right things. This just comes on us.”
About halfway through the first period, Mike Borkowski passed to Wilson from the right circle, and Wilson buried it into a wide-open net to the right of Huskies goaltender Charlie Lindgren.
A little over two minutes later, Colgate doubled its lead as Peterson one-timed a pass from Daniel Gentzler past his old friend Lindgren into the net, and just like that the Raiders were up 2-0 in front of 3,546 stunned fans.
Overall, SCSU was slow on defense in the first period, and Colgate took advantage of that on its two goals. The Raiders spent a lot of time in the SCSU zone and generated many scoring chances.
Huskies coach Bob Motzko was not pleased with the slow start.
“It wasn’t a good first period,” Motzko said. “You wanted to start exactly the way Colgate started. We did not have the right mindset to start the hockey game.”
“We got behind 2-0 early, we tried to dig ourselves out of a hole, and we just couldn’t do it,” said Lindgren, who grew up just down the road from Peterson; the two have known each other since they were kids. Lindgren made 20 saves.
The Huskies came out firing in the second period, however, establishing their forecheck and finally gaining some momentum when they cracked the scoreboard for the first time this season. About three minutes into the middle frame, Borkowski was sent to the sin bin for holding, and St. Cloud took advantage of its first power play.
Jonny Brodzinski had the puck behind the net, spotted Joey Benik high in the slot, passed to him, and Benik wristed it past Colgate goaltender Charlie Finn to cut the Raiders’ lead in half.
“We woke up in the second [period],” Motzko said.
SCSU remained aggressive in the period but couldn’t muster another goal past Finn, who made 33 saves in a brilliant season debut for a Colgate team expected to contend for the ECAC title.
When the third period rolled around, the Huskies couldn’t match their intensity from the second period and Colgate started to get rolling.
Colgate got it going in the Huskies zone again, bumping SCSU players around and finding open looks, but it was a tight-angle shot from Baun that iced the game for the Raiders. Baun lofted a wrist shot that just snuck by Lindgren with about 13 minutes left in the game. Colgate had the insurance goal and held on from there.
“We played cute, like it was gonna be easy,” Motzko said.
St. Cloud outshot Colgate, 34-23, in the contest. The Raiders went 0-3 on the power play, and the Huskies were 1-5.
The two teams will meet again Saturday night as the Raiders go for a crucial sweep and the Huskies try to come out of their first series with a split. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:07 p.m.
