Box Score NORTHFIELD, Vt. – The Norwich University men's ice hockey team rebounded from a tie on Friday night against Saint Anslem with a resounding 6-2 statement victory over New England College on Saturday afternoon at Kreitzberg Arena.
One night after scoring a clutch game-tying goal late in the third period to help NU salvage a tie with Saint Anselm, Gorman continued his impressive weekend with a goal and three assists to lead the Norwich offense on the day.
Norwich (5-0-1, 4-0-1 ECAC East) also got contributions from its large freshmen class as Nick Pichette (Massena, N.Y.), Austin Surowiec (Louisville, Ky.) and Anthony Flaherty (South Boston, Mass.) each scored their first career goals. Senior forwards Travis Janke (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) and Chris Duszynski (Okotoks, Alberta) each potted a goal as well to round out the Cadets' scoring on the day.
Pichette opened the scoring at the 8:15 mark of the first period with a shorthanded goal to give Norwich the all-important first goal. Pichette took advantage of a bouncing puck off a linesman, circled behind the NEC net and skated to the right faceoff circle before turning and firing a shot over the shoulder of NEC goalie Sebastian Andersson.
Duszynski scored his eighth goal of the season with a much needed power play goal for the Cadets at the 12:18 mark to put Norwich up 2-0.
After going 0-for-7 last night against Saint Anselm, Duszynski smacked home a one-timer from the low slot off a pass from behind the net from Janke. Gorman also notched an assist on the goal. The assist for Janke was the 87th of his career and tied him for 10th on the all-time Norwich career assists chart with Bryce Herperger and Jim Nagle.
NEC (5-2-0, 4-2-0 ECAC East) got on the board at the 14:58 mark of the first to cut the Norwich lead to 2-1 when Jesse Ostring scored off assists from Kevin Marceau and Matt Abbott. Ostring slipped the puck past NU goalie Matic Marinsek (Ljubljana, Slovenia) off a rebound on a shot by Marceau.
Surowiec regained the momentum though for Norwich heading into the first intermission when he capitalized on a misplay by a NEC defenseman and fired a low shot through Andersson's five-hole to make it 3-1 Norwich.
Janke made it 4-1 NU 5:38 into the second period when he banked a shot from the corner boards off a NEC defender's skate in front of the net to beat Andersson through the legs.
Flaherty notched the first goal of his career less than three minutes later to push the lead to 5-1. Gorman fed Flaherty the puck from the near half boards to the far circle with a tape-to-tape pass. Flaherty took care of the rest with a quick wrist shot to leave Andersson no chance to recover.
Garrett Brazzier cut the lead back down to 5-2 late in the second with a goal off assists from James O'Reilly and Dan Shirilla.
However, that's as close as the Pilgrims would get as Gorman added a goal in the third to complete his four-point night and cap the 6-2 victory.
Marinsek made 10 saves for Norwich to pick up his fourth victory of the season and improve to 4-0-1 on the year. Andersson took the loss for NEC, surrendering six goals on 37 shots.
Norwich travels to Plattsburgh, N.Y. next Friday night for the 2013 PrimeLink Great Northern ShootOut, where it will meet long time rival Middlebury at 4 p.m. at the Ronald B. Stafford Ice Arena. Plattsburgh hosts UW-Superior in the other matchup with the consolation and championship games set for 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. respectively on Saturday.
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