PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Providence played one of its toughest nonconference games on Tuesday, facing Colgate at Schneider Arena.
And even after Trevor Mingoia’s goal at 16:14 of the third period gave the Friars the win, Providence coach Nate Leaman gave credit to the Raiders.
“Outside of North Dakota, I think that’s the best team we’ve played out of conference,” Leaman said.
The teams came into the game trending in different directions over their past 10 games. The Raiders held a 5-4-1 record in these games, as they had recently dropped games to both Yale and Boston University. The Friars secured a 7-3-0 record over their past 10 games, propelled by outstanding defense and world-class goaltending from Jon Gillies.
Regardless, the Raiders came into the game four spots ahead of the 18th-ranked Friars in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll.
As the game entered its final minutes, both teams were looking for a mistake from their opponent. The Friars got this chance when Colgate goalie Charlie Finn had his pass intercepted by Mingoia, who took the puck and made a move on the Colgate goalie, ultimately beating him with the backhand for his ninth goal of the season.
“I thought we turned the puck over too much,” Colgate coach Don Vaughan said. “We’re dropping the puck on bad ice in front of our net in third period in a tie game – that’s not very smart.”
The game started at a very fast pace until penalty minutes became an alarming trend for the Raiders in the first period. The Friars took advantage of a holding penalty on Joe Wilson nearly nine minutes into the game with Shane Luke burying a rebound chance at the 10:06 mark. Luke was assisted by defenseman John Gilmour on his fourth goal of the season.
With the momentum on the side of Providence, Tyson Spink grabbed the momentum back for Colgate as he took the puck up the left side of the ice and fired a missile past the glove of Gillies. Schneider Arena went completely quiet as the Raiders tied the game up at one. However, penalty minutes bit the Raiders once again towards the end of the period. At the 14:24 mark, three players went into the penalty box.
Nick Saracino and Spink went into the box with offsetting 10-minute misconduct penalties. Colgate’s Kyle Baun drew a slashing penalty on the same play and went to the box for two minutes. Once again, Luke took advantage, taking a pass from his captain Noel Acciari, pushing the puck past Finn at 15:40.
Despite a multitude of penalties and the resulting power-play chances, the second period was very uneventful compared to the first. Colgate was the clear aggressor in the period, taking 11 shots to the Friars’ seven. Twelve minutes had expired when Mark Jankowski stepped out of the penalty box and appeared to immediately break up a Raiders’ possession, blowing past the reaching sticks of the Colgate players. He attempted to put a few moves on Finn and trick him with the backhand, but the Colgate netminder was having none of this, stoning the shot cold and holding on to the puck for a faceoff.
There was also a very controversial moment in the period. On a Colgate rush almost 15 minutes into the period, a Colgate player took a shot that knocked Gillies off balance and to his left. With the left side of the net open, Darcy Murphy put an easy shot into the top corner. With the score potentially tied at 2-2, the refs conferred and decided to look at a replay and determined that there was goalie interference on the play and the goal was waved off.
The Friars opened the final period with another costly period with Jake Walman going in to the box before two minutes had passed off the clock and for the first time in the game, the Raiders were able to take advantage of a power-play chance. Immediately after Walman entered the box, Jake Kulevich took a slap shot from the right side, Gillies could not handle the shot and just like that, the score was tied at two.
With 11:18 left to play, the Friars were finally able to break the 2-2 tie with Gilmour netting a rebound for the Friars’ first even-strength goal of the game. The goal was Gilmour’s second of the season and was assisted by Saracino and Brian Pinho.
The game was quiet for five minutes, but this silence was broken with 7:01 remaining in the period when Murphy put a slow-moving rebound past Gillies. This time, Murphy’s goal did count, and the score was tied at 3-3.
In the final minutes, Gillies stopped an array of desperation shots and the Friars escaped Schneider Arena with the 4-3 victory.
“I think this was a gutsy win,” Leaman said. “I think we’ve played a couple gutsy games and we’ve been on the wrong side it because we didn’t finish. That’s why it’s good tonight because realistically, that game probably could’ve gone either way, and we found a way to keep answering back and keep scoring the goals.”
