Box Score NORTHFIELD, Vt. – Friday night turned out to be a night of milestones at Kreitzberg Arena.
The Norwich University men's hockey team broke a two-game losing streak with a 6-2 win over St. Michael's College to give its legendary head coach Mike McShane his 400th career victory at the helm of the Maroon & Gold program.
Playing in his 100th career game, senior forward Chris Duszynski (Okotoks, Alberta) scored twice, including the game-winning goal to help power the Cadets' offense in the victory. Fellow senior Travis Janke (Swift Current, Saskatchewan) had a goal and an assist, while sophomore defenseman Ryan Whitell (Calgary, Alberta) chipped in with two assists as well.
Norwich (11-3-2, 8-1-1 ECAC East) fell behind 1-0 less than five minutes in after Kevin Altidore scored on a 2-on-1 odd-man rush off a pass from AJ Pieprzak to give St. Michael's the early lead. Pieprzak took an errant shot and skated up the right wing with only one NU defender in front of him. He flipped a pass over to a wide open Altidore who beat Carroll between the legs for his seventh goal of the season.
The Cadets answered back though with Janke netting his eighth goal of the year by throwing a puck off the back of St. Michael's goalie Dave Donzanti from behind the goal that bounced off him and into the back of the net to knot up the game at 1-1. Shane Gorman (Trumbull, Conn.) and Alec Thieda (Rochester Hills, Mich.) picked up assists on the goal.
Norwich took its first lead of the game at the 12:27 mark of the first with a pretty break out play ending with freshman forward Brendan Boyce (St. Albans, Vt.) scoring his first collegiate goal off assists from Anthony Flaherty (South Boston, Mass.) and Mike Kelly (Stoneham, Mass.).
Kelly chipped the puck off the boards to spring Flaherty on a rush with Boyce. Flaherty skated into the St. Michael's zone drawing a defender over to him before feeding a perfect tape-to-tape pass to Boyce all alone in the high slot. Boyce took care of the rest by with a wrist shot snipe over the glove of Donzanti into the upper right hand corner of the net.
St. Michael's came back with a strong second period effort, outshooting Norwich 14-9 in the frame and tied the game back up at 2-2 at the 14:17 mark on the power play. Stephen Inman beat Carroll short side off assists from Danny Divis and Pieprzak.
However, Norwich got a much needed boost with just 42 seconds left in the period when Duszynski notched his team-leading 12th goal of the season on a rebound in front of the net off assists from Whitell and Janke.
Norwich dominated the third period, outshooting St. Michael's 18-5 while adding three more insurance tallies to skate away with the 6-2 win.
Freshman forward Nick Pichette (Massena, N.Y.), Duszynski and Tyler Piacentini (South Weymouth, Mass.) each scored a goal in the third to help the Cadets pull away for their 41st all-time victory over St. Michael's. NU is 41-5 against the Purple Knights all-time and has not lost since 1951.
Norwich senior goalie Parker Carroll (West Chester, Pa.) made his second start of the season and stopped 21 shots to pick up the victory. Donzanti made 29 saves for St. Michael's in the loss.
McShane is now 400-106-29 (.749 winning percentage) in his 19 seasons at Norwich. He has compiled a career record of 644-324-66 in 33 seasons between NU, St. Lawrence and Providence.
Norwich will look to keep up the momentum when it takes on long-time rival Middlebury on Saturday night at 7 p.m. in a non-conference tilt. The Cadets will be looking for a little bit of payback after skating to a 1-1 tie with the Panthers and then losing in a shootout in the opening round of the PrimeLink ShootOut back in November. Saturday's game will mark the 146th all-time meeting between the two rivals.
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