POTSDAM — The Clarkson University men’s hockey team scored three goals in each of the first two periods and survived a wild third period to defeat Rensselaer 7-4 in game one of an ECAC Hockey best-of-three, first-round series before 2,201 fans Friday night at Cheel Arena.
Among the crowd was Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen, a 1989 Clarkson graduate, and Blue Jackets head coach John Tortorella.
Clarkson (16-14-5) can end the series if it wins game two, which starts at 7:30 tonight. If Clarkson loses tonight, there will be a deciding game at 7 p.m. Sunday.
“I just thought we had a couple bounces early on,” Clarkson coach Casey Jones said. “That’s the game of hockey, and we took advantage of that. I thought the puck movement was good, we were skating well between the blue lines and we had limited turnovers. That was the first two periods, and that was the difference with the third.”
The Golden Knights started strong, outshooting RPI 13-3 in the opening period and building a 3-0 lead.
Junior Sam Vigneault got the scoring started for Clarkson, connecting at 7 minute, 5 seconds. James de Haas took a shot from the blue line that hit Vigneault’s skate. Vigneault, who was in front of the crease, took the puck and then scored quickly.
Freshman Sheldon Rempal extended Clarkson’s lead to 2-0 with a goal that went off his skate while he was positioned near the crease at 12:35 of the period. Greg Moro assisted.
Senior Troy Josephs ended the first period scoring with a power-play goal at 16:49. Josephs was beside the RPI net and one-timed a cross-crease pass from Haralds Egle past RPI goalie Chase Perry.
Rempal extended Clarkson’s lead to 4-0 at 7:51 of the second period, scoring his second goal of the game on a wrap-around. He chose to shoot to the near side of the post rather than the more open far side.
“It was a good read off the forecheck there,” Rempal said. “I had some time to see the play develop and I was able to sneak it over the shoulder. I work on (short side) a little bit in practice. Goalies usually don’t expect you go to short-side there. I kind of caught him off guard a little bit there and was able to sneak it in.”
Josephs extended Clarkson’s lead to 5-0 with a power-play goal at 10:11 of the second period. It was the sixth time this season Josephs has scored two goals in a game and the second straight game he has done it.
“I thought we were playing really good and we had a lot of momentum,” Josephs said. “We were sticking to our systems. It’s hard sometimes in the games, but I felt this game we were dominating and play the way we need to play. I felt like our power play has been clicking. The last couple games we have been seeing each other pretty well. It’s a lot of good vision passes and I was just making sure I put the puck in the net.”
RPI (8-27-1) finally scored on a power play of its own at 10:11 with a shot from Viktor Liljegren.
Clarkson took a 6-1 lead at 18:28 of the second period with a goal from senior Perry D’Arrisso.
“The goal is try and play your game and we were fortunate enough to get a couple bounces in the first and second,” D’Arrisso said. “We need to focus on what we need to do (tonight). We know they are going to come out and push, so we have to be ready for that.”
The third period was wild as at one point RPI was outshooting Clarkson 16-1. The Engineers, who boasted the top power-play unit in ECAC Hockey during the regular season, scored three power-play goals in the third period on shots from Jake Marrello (2:46), Jared Wilson (10:00) and Liljegren (18:15).
“I think the biggest thing for me is you aren’t going to be as sharp, with that lead, but we should be sharp with our discipline,” Jones said. “It gave them life and their power play is good. We knew that coming in.”
After Clarkson’s lead shrank to 6-3, Kelly Summers scored a power-play goal at 13:39 to extend it to 7-3. RPI finished with a 20-7 edge in shots in the final period.