Justin Paul scored his second goal of the year on a Skating Saints' power play 29 seconds into the second period, but the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team fell to ninth-ranked Cornell 4-1 on Friday night at Appleton Arena.

St. Lawrence fell to 3-7-4 on the year and 2-3-2 in ECAC play, while Cornell improved to 9-1-0 and 6-1-0 in conference action.

"I thought we managed the puck better tonight, but we got away from our game a couple of times in the third," said Charles W. Appleton Head Men's Hockey Coach Brent Brekke "The extra attacker goal on the delayed penalty took some momentum away from us and they had a good push. Zetterquist played a controlled and calm game tonight and made a few big saves for us. He looked more comfortable, and we'll need him to be solid moving forward."

The Skating Saints did well in the first period to get good looks on the Big Red goal. Less than eight minutes into the game, Jordan Steinmetz, had a good look as he received a pass from Tucker McIntosh and fired a wrist shot on goal with a defender draped all over him, but Nate McDonald turned away the scoring chance. Minutes later on a Saints' power play, Luc Salem unleashed a rocket from the blue line through traffic, but it was snared by McDonald to keep the game scoreless.

Shot totals were low in the first period due to both team's defensive efforts closing lanes and blocking shots. The Saints held the 5-4 edge in shots on goal in the opening frame.



Just 10 seconds into the second period, Cornell's Kyle Penney was tagged with a hooking call putting the Skating Saints back on the man advantage. 19 seconds into the power play, Paul would put St. Lawrence up 1-0 off a beautiful tip-in. Aleksi Peltonen and McIntosh started the play on the boards as they passed it back and forth looking for lanes. Peltonen eventually came off the side wall and threaded a pass into Paul, who was camped out in front of the goal. The sophomore tipped the puck passed McDonald to give the Saints the 1-0 lead.

The game was later tied up with 7:59 left in the second period. The Big Red were pressuring the Saints behind Emil Zetterquist and the puck came out to Travis Mitchell at the blue line. Mitchell sent a low shot on goal that was tipped in front by Ben Berard and over the shoulder of Zetterquist to tie the game at 1-1.

Cornell got two more goals in the opening four minutes of the third period from Matt Steinburg to push their lead to 3-1. With the goalie pulled for an extra attacker, the Big Red iced the game with an empty-net goal to bring the score to 4-1. Steinburg made a diving chop at a Sam Malinski dump-out to score the empty-netter and complete the hat trick.

Zetterquist stopped 21 shots for the Skating Saints while McDonald stopped 19 for the Big Red.

The Skating Saints will complete the ECAC portion of their 2021 schedule tomorrow night when they take on Colgate University at 7:00 p.m. at Appleton Arena.