Vermont’s Scott Mifsud (Burlington, Ont.) scored hat trick and freshman goalie Joe Fallon (Bemidji, Minn.) continued his outstanding play as the Catamounts moved to 4-4-1 overall and 2-0-0 in the ECAC Hockey League with a 7-1 win over Yale Saturday night at a sold-out Gutterson Fieldhouse.
With the win, Vermont allowed just one goal in two ECACHL wins this weekend. This night, the Catamounts scored five power-play goals and once again didn’t allow an extra-man goal. Yale was 0-for-7 on the power play, and Vermont has now killed off 34 straight power-play opportunities.
“I thought we played a great game tonight,” Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon said. “Obviously we would have liked to get Joe the shutout there at the end, but aside from that we didn’t make many mistakes tonight.
“We played a solid game,” Sneddon continued. “Obviously our power play, which wasn’t effective last night, did a heck of a job tonight. That was the difference in the game and I just thought we played well in all aspects of the game.”
Vermont took a 1-0 lead early in the first period when freshman Slavomir Tomko (Zvolen, Slovakia) scored his first career goal with a tough-angle shot that changed direction in front of the net and beat Yale goalie Josh Garnter. Freshman Mike Arcieri (Northport, N.Y.) won the faceoff and got the assist. The Catamounts increased their lead at 12:55 of the first period when Mifsud scored into an open net after Gartner had come out of the crease during a scramble in front. Brady Leisenring (Stowe, Vt.) and Ryan Gunderson (Bensalem, Pa.) picked up the assists on Mifsud’s goal, his fifth of the season and the 30th of his career.
Mifsud scored his second of the night in the final minute of the first period, lifting a shot over Gartner from in close after another scramble. Jeff Corey (Boothwyn, Pa.) and Leisenring assisted. Just before Mifsud had made it 3-0, Fallon made his best stop of the period, thwarting a great scoring chance by Rob Page while the Bulldogs were on the power play.
Mifsud prompted a rain of hats onto the ice when he got the hat trick early in the second period on a two-on-one break with Torrey Mitchell (Greenfield Park, Que.), and the Cats added to their lead with a power-play goal from Kenny Macaulay (Baddeck, Nova Scotia) midway through the second. Moments before Macaulay’s goal, Fallon made a terrific stop on a short-handed breakaway bid by Christian Jensen. Chris Myers (So. Boston, Mass.) scored his second goal of the weekend later in the second to make it 6-0 Vermont. Junior captain Jaime Sifers (Stratford, Conn.) assisted on the Macaulay and Myers goals, while Joey Gasparini (Grand Forks, N.D.) also assisted on Macaulay’s tally.
Junior Matt Syroczynski (Hamburg, N.Y.) scored his first goal as a Catamount late before Yale’s Brad Mills ruined Vermont’s shutout bid with a goal in the final 90 seconds. Chris Smart (Morgantown, W.V.) and Tomko assisted on Syroczynski’s tally. Fallon finished with 22 saves for the Catamounts, while Gartner had eight in the first period before being replaced by Matt Modelski, who stopped 30 Vermont shots.
