SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. – Pier-Olivier Cotnoir scored four goals and Scott Schroeder added a goal and five assists to lead the Norwich men's ice hockey team to a dominating 8-1 win over St. Michael's in ECAC East action on Tuesday night at Cairns Arena.

With the score tied at one, Cotnoir scored two goals 15 seconds apart, both off assists from Schroeder to spark Norwich's run of seven unanswered goals to pull away from St. Michael's.

Travis Janke opened the scoring just 3:32 into the first period when he converted on a textbook power play goal with assists from Cotnoir and Schroeder. Cotnoir threaded the needle through two St. Michael's defenders and found Janke cutting in far post. Janke took the pass and beat St. Michael's goaltender Mike Dizgun five-hole.

St. Michael's answered back less than two minutes later when Nick Sheehan took advantage of a loose rebound that came right to his stick after Norwich goaltender Alex Dubois made the initial save to tie the game at one.

Cotnoir gave Norwich the lead for good with his back-to-back goals, prompting St. Michael's head coach Chris Davidson to call a timeout.

Norwich added to its lead just 1:44 into the second period when Chad Anderson found the back of the net on a loose scramble in front of the net.

Cotnoir picked up his hat trick at the 4:24 mark of the second off assists from Schroeder and Zac Fulton. He capped his scoring 7:20 later to give the Cadets a 6-1 lead with assists from Schroeder and Janke.

St. Michael's pulled Dizgun to start the third period for Brendan Rimmer. Rimmer held the Cadets off the board for nearly 19 minutes. However, Blake Forkey sniped a wrist shot off the crossbar on the power play to push the lead to 7-1 at the 18:49 mark. Schroeder finished his tremendous night by chipping in his first goal of the game and sixth of the season with 1.5 seconds remaining to make it 8-1.

Dubois had 19 saves to pick up his fifth win of the season and improve to 5-1-1. Dizgun was saddled with the loss after making 26 saves to drop to 2-2. Rimmer made 10 saves in the final period while surrendering two goals.

Norwich outshot St. Michael's 44-20 and the Cadets were 2-for-6 on the power play, while St. Michael's was 0-for-3.

Norwich (5-1-1, 4-0-1 ECAC East) returns home to Kreitzberg Arena for the first time since opening weekend on Saturday. The Cadets will host in-state rival Castleton State in a non-conference game at 7 p.m. to close out the first semester schedule.

 Photo courtesy of Shane Bufano Photography