St. Cloud Times — For the second straight game, the St. Cloud State men’s hockey team had a strong first period, a shaky second period and finished strong.
The 17th-ranked Huskies had Robby Jackson score his first two college goals and went on to beat Alaska-Anchorage 6-2 in the championship game of the Kendall Hockey Classic late Saturday night at Sullivan Arena.
One night after sitting out as a healthy scratch in the season-opener, Jackson scored two even-strength goals in the first period.
“Any time you get some adversity, you always want to bounce back,” said Jackson, a freshman forward from Alameda, California. “I had multiple seniors have my back and keeping me upbeat and encouraged. I played on a line with two very experienced and good players tonight. Those guys can flat-out play hockey and that definitely helped a lot.”
His first goal was at 5:43 of the first period and gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead.
“We were kind of cycling the puck down low and Russell got the puck after I kind of got smoked in the corner (with a check). I got lit up pretty good,” Jackson said. “I got up and went to the net and (Jon) Lizotte found me on the back door.”
His second goal ended up being the game-winner for St. Cloud State, which led 3-0 going into the second period.
“Russell got it behind the net and he’s got pretty good vision,” Jackson said. “He put it right on my tape and it was a little bit of an empty net for me.”
Alaska-Anchorage scored twice in the first 5:30 of the second period to cut the lead to 3-2 and had a power play in the period, but could not convert.
“That’s two second periods in a row that we kind of lost our focus a little bit,” said Huskies head coach Bob Motzko, whose team outscored its first two opponents 5-0 and outshot them 22-9 in the first period.
“We gained it back in the second half of the (second) period … then we took a couple dumb penalties and they got life. They came out really hard in the second period and we didn’t match their intensity.”
St. Cloud State, though, got a breakaway goal by senior left wing Jimmy Murray at 1:30 of the third period to take a 4-2 lead.
“We needed that and Jimmy Murray made a heck of a play to score that fourth goal,” Motzko said of Murray, who made a power move around a defender and slid a backhand shot in as he was falling down in front of the net. “Their goalie (Olivier Mantha) was outstanding. We had heard that he was really a bright spot for them a year ago.
“There were a handful of times we really could have put the game away.”
The Huskies got a power-play goal by David Morley at 7:03 of the third period to take a 5-2 lead and sophomore Judd Peterson added a short-handed, empty-net goal at 11:44 to finish the scoring.
St. Cloud State was 2-for-6 on the power play and 5-for-5 killing penalties with a short-handed goal. In the two games in the tournament, the Huskies were 3-for-10 on the power play and 9-for-9 on the penalty kill.
“We had a great step forward with our penalty kill and our power play,” Motzko said. “We’ve got a little advantage on our power play in that our one power-play unit is almost intact from last year, so we’re a little bit ahead to start.
“We’re trying all new penalty killers,” Motzko said. “The biggest thing is we learned a lot about our hockey team this weekend.”
Rasmus Reijola, a junior from Finland, got the start in goal. He made 15 saves to get the win one night after Charlie Lindgren made 14 saves in a shutout win.
“We were splitting goalies no matter what this weekend,” Motzko said. “Charlie is going to carry our mail, but we have to be prepared.
“Ras needed to see game time and get a win and feel confidence.”
The Huskies got at least one goal from all four of its lines in the win.
“I’ve been on some teams with skill that can score goals, but this team has a lot of good players,” Jackson said. “Coach (Motzko) keeps talking about our depth. We’ve got a lot of hockey players on this team who play at a very, very high caliber. They’re fun to play with.”
St. Cloud State has its first home games of the season Oct. 16-17 against Minnesota State-Mankato at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center. The teams play at 7:37 p.m. Friday and 7:07 p.m. Saturday. The Mavericks are the defending WCHA champions.
SCSU 6, ALASKA-ANCHORAGE 2
First period scoring:
1. SCSU — Robby Jackson 1 (Jon Lizotte, Patrick Russell) 5:43.
2. SCSU — Joey Benik 2 (Jimmy Murray, Ethan Prow) 8:50 (pp).
3. SCSU — Jackson 2 (Russell, Kalle Kossila) 11:23.
Penalties: SCSU — Murray (hooking) 2:42; AA — Luke McColgan (checking from behind) 7:32.
Second period scoring:
4. AA — Tad Kozun 1 (Blake Tatchell, Jeremiah Luedtke) 2:56.
5. AA — Matt Anholt 1 (Wyatt Ege) 5:30.
Penalties: AA — Kozun (tripping) 5:49; AA — Chase Van Allen (hooking) 14:13; SCSU — Russell (embellishment) 14:13; SCSU — Eyssimont (tripping) 15:26.
Third period scoring:
6. SCSU — Murray 1 (David Morley, Nate Widman) 1:30.
7. SCSU — Morley 1 (Prow) 7:03 (pp).
8. SCSU — Judd Peterson 2 (Ben Storm) 11:44 (sh, en).
Penalties: AA — Jarrett Brown (tripping) 1:30; SCSU — Lizotte (holding, misconduct) 4:07; AA — Dylan Hubbs (cross-checking) 5:40; AA — Ege (tripping) 6:06; SCSU — Kossila (roughing) 10:47; AA — Austin Azurdia (slashing) 13:08.
Shots on goal: SCSU — 13-6-13—32; AA — 5-3-9—17. Goaltenders: SCSU — Rasmus Reijola (15 saves); AA — Olivier Mantha (26 saves). Power-play goals, opportunities: SCSU — 2-for-6; AA — 0-for-5. Penalties: SCSU — 6 for 20 minutes; AA — 7 for 14 minutes.
