Special teams were the difference in St. Thomas University’s 4-2 pre-season loss Thursday night against St. Francis Xavier.
The Tommie’s went 0 for 5 on the power play and gave up a short-handed goal in a loss to the X-Men at the Lady Beaverbrook Arena.
The Tommie’s looked sharp early on until the X-Men’s Marco Desveaux scored a shorthanded goal to put the X-Men up 3-1 with 1:22 left in the second period.
Desveaux flipped the puck over a sprawling STU defender and took off on a breakaway, beating St. Thomas goalie Charles Lavigne.
Things went from bad to worse for the Tommie’s when Bryce Swan beat Lavigne with a weak wrist shot glove side a minute later, giving the X-Men a 4-1 lead after two periods.
Scott Brannon and Ted Stephens also scored for the X-Men.
Lavigne was solid for the Tommie’s stopping 31 of the 35 shots the X-Men fired at him.
Joseph Perricone and Morgan Clark split time in nets for the X-Men stopping 21 of 23 shots.
St. Thomas kept pace with St. FX early on when Steve Sanza scored late in the first period to tie the game 1-1 heading into the break.
Bryan Main added the other goal for the Tommie’s scoring with less than a second left in the game to bring the final score to 4-2.
Photos by Tom Bateman. Click to enlarge a photo.
