MENDOTA HEIGHTS–Minn. Forward Nick Nielsen buried forward Michael Dockry’s deflection off Royal goaltender Steven Bolton with 3:04 remaining in overtime Friday night to clinch the St. Thomas’ men’s hockey team’s 2-1 victory over Bethel University at St. Thomas Ice Arena.

St. Thomas (15-3-2 overall, 9-0-2 MIAC) needed a late goal in the third period from forward Alex Niestrom to claw its way back from a 1-0 deficit. The Tommies and Royals (3-15-2 overall, 2-8-1 MIAC) played a tough game on both sides of the puck, but St. Thomas had the advantage on the offensive side all night, tallying 42 shots to Bethel’s 19.

“I was getting nervous because I’ve been in so many games like this where the other team is just hanging on, their goaltender’s making saves, the puck’s laying there, and we can’t put it away,” coach Jeff Boeser said.

St. Thomas came out of the gates firing after beating Augsburg on the road last weekend (5-1 and 5-3) and had a few scoring chances early. Midway through the first period, Tommie goaltender Drew Fielding (18 saves) got some help from forward Bryce Walker who dove to block a Royal shot. Earlier in the same possession, Walker lost his stick in the crease and still managed to break up a would-be Royal scoring chance.
While the Tommies ended the first period with a 14-8 advantage in shots on goal, the Royals finished the period with a dangerous power play that was in the St. Thomas zone for a majority of the man advantage.

The Tommies started the second period with a string of scoring chances, including forward Alex Altenbernd’s near miss on a breakaway and Walker’s slap shot from the blue line. Forward Thomas Williams almost broke the tie at the 9:00 mark with a shot on net, followed by a pileup in front of the goalie, but the play was eventually called dead by the officials. Forward Charlie Adams threatened to score later in the period with a right-to-left deke of a Royal defender, only to be shut down by Bolton once more.

Five minutes into the third period, Bethel took the lead with the first score of the game when forward EJ Gann secured a loose puck and snuck a shot past Fielding. Niestrom netted a rebound after defenseman Michael Krieg managed to carry the puck from left-to-right and blasted a shot on net with 10:35 remaining in the third period.

Niestrom said he didn’t feel nervous being down 1-0 late into the third period.

“I’ve been here awhile, so we’ve had teams that have had trouble scoring…but this team is a little bit different this year,” Niestrom said. “We know that we can score.”

“It was a huge goal by our assistant captain there to give us some life,” Boeser said.

Niestrom’s goal sent the Tommies into overtime, however Nielsen only needed 1:56 to score the game-winner.

Dockry sent a cross-ice, saucer pass to a wide-open Nielsen who buried his chance and lifted St. Thomas to a giant sigh of relief.

“We were very fortunate to get that goal, and then in overtime our own number 19 – our little freshman – to a sophomore there Nielsen, and he got the whole net,” Boeser said. “If he would have missed that, that wouldn’t have been good.”

“We preached it all year ‘if you work super hard that good things are going to happen’ and it took longer than we wanted to but we ended up getting the W,” Niestrom said.

Friday night’s victory keeps the Tommies’ unbeaten-MIAC record intact and brings them to a pivotal road game against Bethel Saturday night in Blaine.

“They didn’t give up and neither did we,” Nielsen said. “We just dominated and stuck to it, even when they got that goal late, we still knew that we were going to come back and win.”

After Saturday’s matchup, St. Thomas has a series with the number one team in the conference Gustavus, on the horizon.

Joey Anderson can be reached at ande9008@stthomas.edu.