Benilde-St. Margaret's Boys' Hockey

For anyone who thought this year's version of the Benilde-St. Margaret's boys hockey team would be a one-line show, Thursday night proved that notion wrong.

Burnsville held the Red Knights' top line of Grant Besse, T.J. Moore and Dan Labosky in check while getting three assists each from two of its top players in Tyler Sheehy and Teemu Kivihalme.

However, Spencer Nass put on a show in the second period by scoring four times, Chris Hickok and Alec Baer also chipped in with key goals and the top-ranked Red Knights handed No. 6 Bursville a 7-4 defeat.

BSM fell behind when Brock Boeser converted a turnover into a quick goal just 22 seconds into the contest but the Red Knights got that goal back barely three minutes later when Hickok picked up a loose puck behind the Blaze goal line, skated around to the right side of the net and scored on a wraparound.

After that, BSM dominated play at even-strength as Burnsville's final three goals would all come via the power play.

The first of those came at 8:50 of the opening period as Ian Taylor scored the first of his two goals on the night and the visitors took that 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

It took the Red Knights just 63 seconds into the middle stanza to tie the score as Naas struck for his first goal of the season and he gave BSM a lead with his second goal at 5:34.

Baer, who set up Naas' second goal, scored his second of the season when he took a pass from Johnny Austin near his own blueline and went the rest of the way with the puck, using a nifty move to get the puck on his forehand in front of the net before beating Chris Mallon for his second goal of the season at 7:46.

Sam Dockry got the Blaze back to within a goal of the lead when he scored on the power play with 3:18 to play in the period but Naas scored 62 seconds later to complete his hat trick and struck again 20 seconds later to send the Red Knights into the lockerroom with a 6-3 lead.

Besse got BSM's lone power-play goal of the game with 5:40 to play when he took a pass from Labosky in the right circle and his shot found its way into the net, giving him his 118th career goal to move into 14th on the all-time goal-scoring list in Minnesota.

Besides his goal, Baer set up Naas twice for a three-point night. The Red Knight defense, which did not record a point in the team's season-opening win at Moorhead, Saturday, got two assists each from Austin and Ben Newhouse.

Saturday, BSM meets Hill-Murray in a rematch of last year's Class AA state championship game. Opening faceoff at the St. Louis Park Rec Center is slated for 7 p.m.