Jan. 17: It's not often that a visiting team stick salutes the fans following a game in the opposing rink.
 
It happened Saturday night as the Skating Saints delighted and saluted a large contingent of followers after skating to an impressive 5-1 over fourth-ranked Harvard, sweeping their ECAC weekend in New England. The Saints, 3-2 winners over Dartmouth on Friday, put up three goals in the first period on their way to the most productive night since an Nov. 7 win over Brown and shut down one of the league's top offenses with the help of a big night from freshman goalie Kyle Hayton, who made 46 saves, 21 of them in the third period.
 
St. Lawrence, 11-10-2 overall and 7-4-0 in league play became just the second team to beat the Crimson, which had lost to Yale twice in its only setbacks prior to Saturday's SLU victory. The Saints are now 4-0-1 in their last five against Harvard and have won three straight in Cambridge.
 
One of the best first period performances of the season set the stage for the upset win. Gunnar Hughes opened the scoring with his eighth of the year, taking a drop pass from Tommy Thompson and snapping a shot inside the far post against Harvard starter Steve Michalek for his eighth of the year 7:12 into the game. It went to 2-0 on the Saints first power play chance of the night as Gavin Bayreuther pinched from the point, took a pass from Brian Ward at the faceoff dot to Michalek's right and gunned his fifth of the season into the net at 13:29. It went to 3-0 and Michalek was done for the night 1:10 later when Patrick Doherty scored his sixth of the season on a rebound as he picked up the puck after Thompson's shot was stopped and put it back from the top of the blue.

"We knew they were shorthanded going in and wanted to make a statement early with our play," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "We got the puck to the net and were able to run a very good goalie out of the game."
 
The Saints weathered a storm in the second period as Harvard outshot the Saints 18-7, but managed only one goal. An apparent Harvard goal was waved off after video review early in the period as Hayton argued that he was interfered with and the referees agreed. The Crimson did get on the board when Tyler Moy fired home is eighth of the year just five seconds into a power play at the 9:04 mark to make it a 3-1 game after two.

"We knew there was going to be a push-back in the second period and they had us on our heels for half the period, but then we were able to settle things down," Carvel added. "It was a tremendous performance by Kyle Hayton and our special teams. The shots were lopsided, but the game wasn't. We battled in front of the net at both ends and stuck to our game plan."
 
Harvard continued to pile up the shots in the third period, seven of them coming on the power play, but while the Saints were outshot 21-4 in the final 20 minutes, two of the four Saint shots went into the net.
 
Brian Ward scored his second of the weekend and seventh of the season on a major power play at 1:56 from Nolan Gluchowski and Bayreuther and Alex Dahl scored his second of the season with the teams skating five on five as he took a pass from Eric Sweetman, held his shot and then unleashed a bomb which beat Harvard freshman goalie Merrick Madsen to the post at the 10 minute mark.
 
Harvard pulled Madsen for an extra attacker on the power play with 3:20 to go, but Hayton and the Saint defense foiled that strategy and came away with the win.