Ferris State overcame a two-goal deficit to come away with a 3-3 tie against Mercyhurst after trailing early.
Still, the Bulldogs have plenty of work in front of them.
“The positive is we were down two goals and came back, down a goal in the third and came back,” said Ferris State coach Bob Daniels. “But we definitely have an issue we need to cure and that’s the penalties.”
Daniels’ squad had 10 penalties for 31 minutes while giving Mercyhurst eight power plays. The Lakers scored on two of those power plays in the first period to take a quick two-goal lead.
Ryan Misiak buried a pass from Paul Chiasson to get the Lakers on the board. Then he returned the favor to Chiasson two minutes later.
“We won’t win if we continue to take penalties,” said Daniels. “You ruin your top line overplaying some kids and underplaying others. [Garrett] Thompson and [Travis] Ouellette are out there killing penalties and Kyle Bonis is sitting for minutes at a time getting cold.”
While Daniels was worried about his team’s penalties, Mercyhurst head coach Rick Gotkin was excited about the Lakers getting on the board first.
“It was important for us to score first,” said Gotkin. “We were coming from behind the last two games and not very successful.”
Gotkin attributed his team’s success his assistant coaches’ hard work breaking down last night’s game film.
“It’s easy to see we needed to make more plays,” Gotkin said. “Bobby Ferraris and Pete Aubry worked like dogs to make system changes in the defensive zone and to the forecheck.”
Despite trailing by two, Ferris State wasn’t done yet. Eric Alexander hammered home a shot to put Ferris State on the board and get a comeback going.
Ferris State tied it up with a power -lay goal of its own. Cory Kane won the opening faceoff of the power play and Andy Huff fired a shot past Jimmy Sarjeant to end the power play just as quickly as it began.
Mercyhurst took back the lead with a goal by Grant Blakey.
Ferris State tied the game back up at three with a goal from Justin DeMartino.
“It’s taken two-and-a-half years to get him to this point and now, it’s time for him to reap the benefits,” Daniels said of DeMartino’s play thus far this season.
With the game knotted at three, the teams headed to overtime where both sides had scoring opportunities late in the extra frame.
Mercyhurst had its chance when a wide shot rebounded off the glass and then the top of the net before being smothered by CJ Motte before Grant Gettinger could get to it.
Ferris State answered back with a rush by Thompson, Bonis and Ouellette that ended with Ouellette sending the feed from Bonis wide of the net.
The game concluded with an exhibition shootout, which was “won” by Mercyhurst.
