The Skating Saints raced out to a lead, scoring two goals in the first period, and put the game on ice with three more in the third, as the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team dominated Princeton 6-2 on Saturday night in Appleton Arena.

St. Lawrence improved to 4-21-3 overall and 3-12-1 in ECAC play, while Princeton fell to 12-9-1 overall and 8-6-0 in league play.

The goal-scoring got started at 7:23 of the first period when the Saints cashed in on an odd-man rush. Andrew Brown found Cayden Casey with a pass, and the sophomore went in on the 2-on-1 with Sam LeDrew. The center dished a pass over to LeDrew, who one-timed the puck home for the 1-0 lead.

The score held until the final minutes of the first period when Scarlet and Brown cashed in on the power play. With 2:37 left in the first, Filip Juříček fed a sideways pass to Cooper Pierson, whose shot sailed wide of the cage. The puck bounced off the wall and to Rasmus Svartström, who scored his team-leading 14^th goal of the campaign to give the Saints the 2-0 lead at the break.



In the middle frame, Princeton was able to cut into the lead with a David Ma goal at the 7:42 mark, but St. Lawrence bounced right back, scoring less than a minute later to regain the two-goal lead.

Pierson caused a turnover for the Saints and carried the puck into the Tiger end with Tyler Cristall trailing. The first-year waited out a defender and zipped a cross-crease pass to Cristall, who tapped in the goal on the far post for the 3-1 lead.

The score held until the third period, where once again Princeton was able to make it a one-score game. The goal was a strange one as a shot from Ma looked as if it was saved, but after a review was found to have gone in the Saints' net.

The game flipped on its head in the last seven minutes as the St. Lawrence offense roared to life.

With 6:02 left in regulation, Gabe Westling collected a Tiger turnover and passed off to Nicholas Beneteau, who skipped the puck back to Westling at the top of the circle. The Swedish forward's one-time shot beat the goalie clean to make it a 4-2 game.

Moments later, Beneteau earned his second assist of the game, passing off to Brown, who dumped the puck in on the Princeton net. Conor Callaghan made the save in the net, but Isaac Tremblay caught the defense sleeping and took the rebound to the side of the net and scored to make it 5-2 with under four to go.

The barrage concluded in the final three minutes after the Tigers pulled their netminder. Isack Bandu caused a key turnover on the play and iced the puck into the open net to put the game on ice at 6-2.

There was plenty of physical play and penalties given out in the final three minutes, but Princeton was unable to get any closer as the clock hit zero.

Cameron Smith made 21 saves for his second career win, while Callaghan had 27 for the Tigers.

St. Lawrence held the 33-23 edge in shots on goal and went 1-for-3 on the power play, while Princeton went 0-for-2.

The two teams each had 50 penalty minutes in the physical contest, accounting for 100 total penalty minutes.

St. Lawrence will keep their home stand rolling next weekend when it hosts Union and RPI at Appleton Arena.