Canisius rattled off five unanswered goals to erase a two-goal deficit and cruise to a 6-3 victory over Clarkson in collegiate ice hockey action Saturday at KeyBank Rink at Harborcenter.

Senior Dylan McLaughlin tallied two goals and an assist while fellow senior Cameron Heath pitched a one goal and a personal-best three assists to pace the Golden Griffins (4-4-0), who recorded four of its six goals while on the power play. Junior Nick Hutchison, sophomore Austin Alger and freshman Lee Lapid also scored for Canisius.

Jordan Schneider, Nico Sturm and Greg Moro accounted for the three tallies from the Golden Knights (4-4-0).

Clarkson tallied two goals exactly a minute apart early in the first period to jump out to a quick 2-0 lead.

Schneider opened the scoring at the 6:50 mark of the frame, beating Canisius netminder Tucker Weppner with a snap shot glove side for his first of the campaign before Sturm struck on the following shift, rushing into the Griffs zone before sliding a backhand between Weppner’s legs to make it 2-0.

Canisius got on the board less than a minute after Sturm’s tally when McLaughlin beat Clarkson keeper Jake Kielly with a wrist shot from the left sidewall to trim the deficit in half, 2-1.

Heath brought the Griffs level at the 11:41 mark of the opening frame with a power-play tally, putting home a far side rebound after Kielly turned aside Hutchison’s deflection attempt from just in front of the Golden Knights cage.

Lapid gave Canisius the lead just 62 seconds into the middle frame, jamming home a loose puck while the Griffs were on the power play to make it a 3-2 contest.

Alger doubled the Canisius cushion 80 seconds after Lapid’s go-ahead goal, beating Kielly with a wrist shot from the middle of the slot for his first goal with the Griffs.

Hutchison increased the Canisius advantage to 5-2 with a power-play marker just past the midway point of the contest, sliding the puck under Kielly from close range for his fourth of the season.

Moro trimmed the Clarkson deficit to 5-3 with a little more than two minutes to play in the second when his shot from the point was stopped by Weppner, but the rebound deflected off a Canisius player and into the net.

McLaughlin closed out the scoring at the 6:46 mark of the third, putting home a back-door feed from Mazza while the Griffs were on the power play for his second of the contest.

Weppner recorded 30 saves in goal for Canisius before being replaced by sophomore Jake Zurat for the final 69 seconds of the contest. Zurat stopped all three shots he faced.

Head Coach Trevor Large’s Postgame Comments
“It was an all-hands-on-deck win tonight. We’ve been working hard this week to get some details into our game and some structure. We knew that is was going to require a big effort for us to get the win tonight. I’m very happy with how we played.

“We gave up a couple of early goals and then Dylan scores a big goal and then we were able to build some momentum from there. We were able to respond and then we just kept pushing and building momentum and all of a sudden we got up in the game pretty quick.”

Game Notes
• Saturday’s game served as the eighth meeting between Canisius and Clarkson. The win by the Griffs snapped a six-game unbeaten streak for the Golden Knights in the series (3-0-3).
• The victory was Canisius’ first over and ECAC Hockey opponent since a 7-6 overtime victory against Colgate on Dec. 20, 2009.
• The four power-play goals for the Griffs were a season high and the most in a game since tallying five man-advantage markers in a 6-3 triumph against Robert Morris on Oct. 21, 2016.
• Clarkson was 0-for-4 on the power play as Canisius has now successfully killed off each of its last 19 shorthanded situations.
• Heath established career highs in both assists (3) and points (4) on Saturday. His previous career high in both categories was two.
• McLaughlin recorded multiple points in a game for the fourth time this season with his three-point effort on Saturday. The Griffs improved to 27-5-1 when he tallies two or more points in a game.
• The three points increased McLaughlin’s career point total to 120, moving into sole possession of sixth place on the program’s Division I era chart.
• Hutchison’s second-period goal was his third power-play tally of the season and the 17th of his career.

Up Next
• Canisius travels to Rochester Tuesday for a single contest against RIT. The game is the first half of an Atlantic Hockey series that will see the Griffs travel back to Rochester for the finale on March 2.
• Puck drop for the midweek contest between the Griffs and the Tigers is set for 7 p.m. at the Gene Polisseni Center.

ROCHESTER, NY – Jake Hamacher (Corona, CA/Dubuque Fighting Saints) and Erik Brown (Keene, Ontario/Kemptville 73’s) scored two goals apiece to lift the RIT men’s hockey team (5-3-1, 3-2-1 AHA) to a 5-2 win over American International (3-7-1, 3-4-1 AHA) at the Gene Polisseni Center on Saturday evening.

RIT got off to a tremendous start, scoring twice in 39 seconds early in the first period to take a 2-0 lead, held a 3-0 advantage after the opening period and held leads of 4-0 and 5-1 to cruise to the win. RIT earned its first home sweep in a calendar year, also doing so last Nov. 10-11.

Goaltender Logan Drackett (Calgary, Alberta/Calgary Canucks) was strong in net for the Tigers, stopping 21 of 23 shots to pick up his fifth win of the season. Brown added an assist for a three-point night, while Abbott Girduckis (Belleville, Ontario/Wellington Dukes) had a goal and an assist and Dan Willett (Bayville, NY/Bloomington Thunder) dished out two assists.

Blake Christensen and Chris Dodero scored for the Yellow Jackets. Stefano Durante started and stopped five of seven shots in the first 10:30 before leaving with an injury. Zackarias Skog played the final 49 minutes, stopping 33 of 36 shots.

RIT out-shot AIC, 43-23. Both teams were 1-for-3 on the power-play.

“I liked that we were able to get the early lead and play well with the lead,” said RIT head coach Wayne Wilson. “It was important for us to use our whole bench with the quick turnaround (Tuesday night). We want to finish our three-game homestand well.”

Brown and Hamacher scored goals 39 seconds apart to give RIT a quick 2-0 lead in the opening period. Brown grabbed a loose puck that was tipped away by Gabe Valenzuela (Brampton, Ontario/North York Rangers) and darted in on a 2-on-1 rush. Brown fired a hard shot on the rush from the slot past Durante for his fifth goal of the season. Hamacher made it 2-0 with his third goal of the season, taking a feed from Shawn Cameron (Sherbrooke, Quebec/Cumberland Grads), spinning and firing in a hard shot from the right circle.

Hamacher would make it 3-0 with 5:36 left in the opening period, taking a feed from Alden Dupuis (Edmonton, Alberta/Bonnyville Pontiacs) in the neutral zone, sliding into the zone and cutting to the right wing and surprising Skog with a wrist shot from the right side that snuck in for his second goal of the period and fourth of the season. He now has nine points in nine games, surpassing his point total from last season, accomplished in 36 games.

Girduckis made it 4-0 RIT just 2:16 into the second period, redirecting a pass from Brown that went off his skate and then Skog and in for his fifth goal of the year.

Christensen would get AIC on the board with a power-play goal on a delayed penalty, ripping a slap shot from the high slot through traffic past Drackett for his fifth tally of the season.

Brown would give RIT its four-goal lead back with 8:58 left in the period on the power-play, redirecting a perfect goalmouth feed from Willett in for his second goal of the game and sixth of the season.

The Tigers would cruise in the third period, maintaining its big lead. Dodero completed the scoring with four seconds left in regulation, jamming in a loose puck for his first collegiate goal.

The Tigers defeated AIC, 2-1 last night behind 32 saves from Drackett and goals from Dupuis and Darren Brady (Lake Orion, MI/New Jersey Titans). RIT leads the all-time series between the two schools, 32-6-3. RIT and AIC will also meet in Springfield, Mass. for a pair of games on Jan. 11-12.

RIT is right back in action, hosting Cansius College on Tuesday night from the Gene Polisseni Center at 7:05 p.m. It is Hometown Heroes night, as all first responders, active and retired military members receive free admission.

MARQUETTE, Mich. – The special teams were just special enough for the Cornell men’s hockey team on Saturday night.

After entering the weekend last in the country in combined special teams percentage, the Big Red used three power-play goals by Alec McCrea, Morgan Barron and Michael Regush to take control and eventually ride out a 3-2 victory over Northern Michigan on Saturday night at Berry Events Center.

“It’s a good road win with some of the guys we have out,” said Mike Schafer ’86, the Jay R. Bloom ’77 Head Coach of Men’s Hockey at Cornell. “We had a pretty shorthanded lineup tonight.”

Specifically, two of the teams top-four defensemen didn’t dress. That meant huge minutes for McCrea, senior Matt Nuttle, junior Yanni Kaldis and sophomore Cody Haiskanen. Two more forwards that started the game departed early due to injury.

The victory completed a weekend sweep in non-league play and is the fourth straight for Cornell (4-2), which was ranked 17th in the nation in the most recent USCHO.com poll. The Big Red has never trailed in those four games, and it handed Northern Michigan (3-7) its first sweep at home since Dec. 9-10, 2016.

All five of the game’s goals came on the power play, with Cornell’s three-goal performance on the man advantage marking the program’s first since Feb. 4, 2017 against Rensselaer – a span of 51 games.

McCrea’s goal came late in a power-play chance in just the game’s sixth minute. Max Andreev made a nice play to gain the NMU zone and draw defenders to the middle before dishing back to Brenden Locke. He quickly set up McCrea for a shot from the top of the left circle, which found a way through the legs of goaltender Atte Tolvanen.

About 10 minutes later, Cornell found itself on its first two-man advantage of the season. It took just 12 seconds for Kaldis to tee up Barron for a rocket from the top of the right circle that led to his team-leading fourth goal of the year.

But while a two-goal lead for visitors was established, so too was the parade to the penalty box. The Big Red missed a golden opportunity to blow the game open early in the second period when it failed to connect on a five-minute power play after a major penalty. Northern Michigan then got on the board with Troy Loggins’ one-timed blast past Matthew Galajda’s blocker with 3:21 left in the second to cut the hosts’ deficit to 2-1.

“That five-minute power play killed us,” Schafer said. “We were lackadaisical, and I think we didn’t get possession in zone for the entire five minutes. It was a waste of time and energy.”

Regush then scored for a third straight game to restore Cornell’s two-goal lead. It came on a rebound kicked out after Mitch Vanderlaan’s shot from the left circle. It also proved to be the winner after Loggins’ second goal of the night led to anxious moments down the stretch for the Big Red.

But Galajda made 24 saves to earn the win, the last coming on Joseph Nardi’s shot on a six-on-four chance in the waning seconds.

“It shows what happens when you let your foot off gas,” Schafer said. “The third period was a grind; even the second period was. They really started coming, and we didn’t respond great. It’s a learning lesson.”

The Big Red returns home for a pivotal ECAC Hockey weekend in which it hosts Quinnipiac on Friday and defending league champion Princeton on Saturday.