OXFORD, Ohio — From a stats perspective, Miami should have dominated its encore performance against St. Lawrence Saturday night.
It really shouldn’t have even been close, either as the RedHawks outplayed St. Lawrence in a 2-1 overtime win. They outshot them 53-11. For crying out loud, the Saints didn’t even register a shot on goal in the second period, but that’s why games aren’t played on paper.
The RedHawks were thoroughly outmatched for the first two periods Saturday, and a redoubling of efforts was apparent early.
As has been a trend in recent games, Miami poured a steady stream of shots in the direction of Kyle Hayton early on and registered 14 shots to the Saints’ four. Undaunted, St. Lawrence jumped onto the score sheet first at 15:07 of the first period courtesy of Justin Bruckel. That lead would only stand for about 10 minutes, though, as John Doherty netted the first goal of his career by waiting Hayton out on an extended forehand deke. It was an objective beauty, and a move that Doherty’s teammates relished nearly as much as he.
“We were so happy for him,” Sean Kuraly said. “He’s a kid that works hard every day. He does that stuff in practice all the time, so we weren’t that surprised. We’re just really happy for him.”
As for Doherty, he was just happy to end up on the stats sheet.
“It’s great to contribute here,” Doherty said. “I’m just glad I got the opportunity. It just goes to show that anyone can step up on any night.”
Miami continued to abuse the rubber in the latter half of the game, chalking up 31 shots in the final two frames. Try as the RedHawks did, Hayton was an enigma that remained unsolved the rest of regulation. Like most fantastic finishes, this one took overtime to be decided.
The RedHawks resumed their intense offensive pressure in the extra period of puck, and several chances came and went before a seemingly innocent opportunity busted wide open, coming off the stick of Scott Dornbrock. Like the 50 shots he turned aside in the first 60 minutes and change, Hayton fought this one off, but coughed up a rebound that landed firmly on Kuraly’s timber. With a flick of the wrist, the junior notched his fourth goal of the year, and the deciding one in this contest.
“We looked like a tired team,” SLU coach Greg Carvel said. “That’s a real good hockey team and we just couldn’t bring the energy to match them tonight. But I give my guys a ton of credit. Nobody thought we could come down here and steal a win, and almost find a way to get two. Miami was the better team tonight, though.”
Though Miami was the better team, the Saints boasted the better goaltender of the night. Hayton stood on his head for over an hour of ice time, and finished with 51 saves on 53 shots.
“Kyle’s a very good goalie, and we’ve gotten that every game from him,” Carvel explained. “We knew it was going to be a game where we had to defend well.”
The RedHawks were just relieved to finally find the back of the net for a second time in the game. Kuraly joked that he almost didn’t believe that he actually beat Hayton, but was relieved to see the official signal the goal, and see his team earn the victory.
“It was good to get the win,” Kuraly said. “I think we improved from last night a lot.”
Miami improves to 4-2 on the year with the win, and is now 3-0 on the back end of weekends. In the past three contests, Miami has outshot opponents 157-47.
