Yellowjackets salvage split with Saints

The University of Wisconsin-Superior men’s hockey team rebounded from Friday’s 5-1 season-opening loss to St. Scholastica with a 6-4 win over the same Saints Saturday night at Wessman Arena.

The Yellowjackets and Saints are now both 1-1 overall and 1-1 in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association.

Kyle Leahy sealed the victory for UWS with a goal in the final minute of the game.

St. Scholastica 2-2-0--4

UW-Superior 2-2-2--6

First Period: 1. UWS, Pat Dalbec (Joey Massingham), 1:28. 2. CSS, Brandon Nowakowski (Paul Marcoux, Tyler Miller), 4:32. 3. UWS, Nick Stoskopf (Tanner Dion,), 11:38. 4. CSS, Keegan Bruce (Miller, Chris Sinclair), 12:22.

Second Period: 5. CSS, Brett Corcoran (Alex Valenti, Ryne Bodger), 1:46. 6. UWS, Brett Meyers (Dion), 4:56. 7. CSS, Chad Golanowski (Nowakowski, Brendenb Bradbury), 8:11. 8. UWS, Nick Drill (Jeff Forsythe, Josh Kesler), 16:28.

Third Period: 9. UWS, Andy Singerhouse, 6:01. 10. UWS, Kyle Leahy (Pat Dalbec, Forsythe), 19:46 (en).

Saves: Tyler Bruggeman, CSS 5-12-5—22. Colin Rundell, CSS x-x-6—6. Dennis Nordmark, UWS 5-5-3—13. Att: 732.

Saints 5, ‘Jackets 1

Two goals and an assist by Alex Valenti helped the Saints open up the season with a 5-1 victory over the Yellowjackets Friday night before a Wessman Arena crowd of 643.

Dylan Nowakowski, Brett Corcoran and Brendon Kotyk also scored for the Saints and Colin Rundell stopped 17 saves before leaving the game with an injury with 5:17 left in the second period. Tyler Bruggeman played the rest of the game in goal for CSS, finishing with 10 saves.

Freshman Dennis Nordmark had 16 saves in his Yellowjacket debut.

The game was penalty-filled with 26 penalties overall, including 12 penalties for 38 minutes for UWS and 14 penalties for 58 minutes for CSS.

Each team was also whistled for two major penalties and game misconducts.

Unofficially, UWS was 1-of-11 on the power play while two of the Saints’ goals came with the extra skater.

The Yellowjackets failed to score on a 5-on-3 power play for 1:31 early in the first period then squandered any chances of scoring during a five-minute major penalty when Superior’s Mike Orosey was given his own 5-minute major penalty two minutes later for head contact.

In the meantime, Nowakowski put home the rebound after a soft shot from the point and a pad save by Nordmark 1:13 into the game and then Corcoran one-timed the puck past Nordmark after a pass from Tyler Miller 13 seconds into a Ryan Hill roughing penalty.

The second period included eight more penalties, including the third major of the game on the Saints’ Cody Danychuk.

Each team capitalized with the man advantage in the middle stanza, starting with CSS at 4:00 when Kotyk beat Nordmark with a one-timer after a pass from Corcoran.

Superior’s goal came at 7:40 when Massingham deflected a high shot by Pat Dalbec under Runell’s glove. Derek Stauber also assisted on the goal.

Valenti’s first goal came with 15:54 remaining when he made a nifty move around a Yellowjacket defenseman and slipped the puck past Nordmark. His second goal was into an empty net with 27.7 seconds left,.

The Saints and Yellowjackets play against at 7:05 p.m. Saturday.

’JACKET JOTTINGS: CSS’s Matt Malenstyn and UWS’s Brett Wold were also given 5-minute major penalties. Wold’s penalty was a charging penalty after the game’s final buzzer. That call led to a bench minor penalty on CSS. … The Saints won their first season-opening game since 2009. … The win for the Saints is the first in the last eight meetings with the Yellowjackets.

St. Scholastica 2-1-2—5

UW-Superior 0-1-0—1

First Period: 1. CSS, Dylan Nowakowski (Alex Valenti, Ryne Bodger), 1:13. 2. CSS, Brett Corcoran (Tyler Miller), 10:40 (pp).

Second Period: 3. CSS, Brendon Kotyk (Corcoran), 4:00 (pp). 4. UWS, Joey Massingham (Pat Dalbec, Derek Stauber), 7:40 (pp).

Third Period: 5. CSS, Valenti (Justin Krabben, Brenden Bradbury), 15:54. 6. CSS, Valenti, 19:33 (en).

Saves: Colin Rundell, CSS 8-9-x—17. Tyler Bruggeman, CSS x-2-8—10. Dennis Nordmark, UWS 9-4-3—16.

Tags: sports, hockey, uws, yellowjackets, css, saints, updates