SAINT PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus men’s hockey team dropped an offensive battle Saturday night 7-5 to Saint John’s to finish the season 7-17-1 overall and 4-11-1 in the MIAC.
Evan Erickson (Sr., Woodbury, Minn.) highlighted the night for the Gusties on Senior Night, netting his first career hat trick.
After Saint John’s opened the scoring 43 seconds into the game, Erickson tied the score at the 3:17 mark. Five minutes later, Erickson tallied his second of the game on a power play. The Johnnies tied it up at the 9:24 mark, but 23 seconds later Logan Norman (So., Luverne, Minn.) scored a short-handed goal on a nifty pass from Colton Schmidt (Sr., Eden Prairie, Minn.) and the Gusties carried a 3-2 lead into the first intermission.
Saint John’s once again tied the score 3:35 into the second before Norman posted his second goal of the game at the 8:46 mark. Three minutes later, the Johnnies made the score 4-4 but in the see-saw game the Gusties had an answer at the 15:35 mark as Erickson completed his hat trick and the score read 5-4 Gustavus after two periods.
Nearly 14 minutes passed in the third before the Johnnies netted the equalizer and it took less than a minute for the visitors to score what proved to be the game winner. An empty-netter with 41 seconds remaining put the game out of reach.
The Gusties outshot the Johnnies 39-32. In his final game between the pipes, Chris Amsden (Sr., Saint Peter, Minn.) suffered the loss after making 25 saves.