Lake Superior State defeated Ferris State 4-2 Saturday night at the Taffy Abel Arena to break a nine-game losing streak.
“Tonight we made some things happen offensively, which is obviously positive,” Lake State coach Scott Borek said. “It was a little difficult at the end, but this is a team that hasn’t won in five weeks and that is what happens.
“We played harder within our systems and smarter. We really took care of our third man in the offensive zone so we didn’t give up a lot of rushes. We really played the defensive side of the puck on forecheck. We were able to look more confident simply because we were in position.”
Jason Nightingale put Lake Superior State on the board with a power-play goal at the 15:19 mark of the first period.
Seniors Ryan Vince and Bart Redden added assists on Nightingale’s 10th goal of the season, which gave the Lakers their first power-play goal in 51 attempts.
“The nicest thing about those power-play goals is that we were not doing anything different. It was just great work around the net,” Borek said. “In both cases it really took the monkey off the back.”
Vince put the Lakers up 2-0 with a goal from the top of the right circle to give LSSU their second power-play goal of the evening. Junior Tyson Turgeon and senior Mike Vigilante added the assists.
With 17 seconds remaining in the second period, Ryan Knox sent a one-timer past FSU goaltender Phil Osaer.
The Lakers opened the third period with a three-goal lead and a power-play opportunity, but were short a defenseman. Will Magnuson was given a 10-minute misconduct at the 13:23 mark of the second period.
Nightingale scored his second goal of the night at 7:40 putting the Lakers up 4-0.
At 11:26 Jon Rogger stole Jayme Platt’s shutout with a power-play goal. With 2:12 remaining in the game, Chris Kunitz scored his 15th goal of the season and put the Bulldogs within two.
Ferris State pulled Osaer in favor of the extra attacker with 1:37 left to play, but were unable to capitalize.
The 4-2 win was the Lakers’ first since defeating Bemidji State 4-2 in the first round of the Mariucci Classic on Dec. 29.
Platt stopped 20 shots for the Lakers, who improved to 11-10 and 7-17 in the CCHA. FSU fell to 12-14-4 and 8-11-3 in the CCHA.
The Lakers will host Niagara in a non-conference matchup on Feb. 17.
