Benilde-St. Margaret's Boys' Hockey

Benilde-St. Margaret's scored four power-play goals and outshot Totino-Grace, 50-17, en route to a 5-0 win in a match up of the North Suburban Conference's only unbeaten teams.

"I thought this was a pretty dominant performance by the team tonight," head coach Ken Pauly said. "The guys came out with passion and fire. We were very aware that these games with Totino Grace are critical if we hope continue to hold onto the conference title."

Pat Steinhauser, who snapped a nine-game goal-scoring drought Tuesday, scored the game's first goal when Patrick Duda flipped the puck out of the BSM zone. Steinhauser picked up the loose puck in the neutral zone along the right-wing boards, skated into the right faceoff circle and snapped a shot over Totino-Grace goalie Tyler Olson's glove.

Duda put the Red Knights up by two goals when he parked in front of the Eagles' net and tipped a shot from the left point by Jake Horton.

That lead went to 3-0, one minute, 22 seconds into the second period when Pat Borer took a cross-ice pass from Brett Patterson. His first shot from the left circle was blocked by Nik Colpitts but he got his own rebound and put it through Olson's pads.

Patterson, who extended his point-scoring streak to seven-games when he set up Borer's goal, got his 12th goal of the season when he made and end-to-end rush along the left-wing boards, worked around the left circle in the Eagles' zone and scored from along the goal line to put his team up, 4-0, with 7:36 to play in the middle stanza.

The score remained that way for the next 24 minutes, despite six BSM power-play chances, and appeared as the game would end that way until just 30 seconds remained in the game when Pat Cron knocked in his ninth goal of the season to finish the scoring.

The game marked the fifth consecutive ranked opponent the Red Knights have faced and they have come through it with four wins.

"The last five games have been a tough stretch," Pauly said. "To  have won four of those says a lot about our team. Our work isn’t done by a long shot, however, 13-3-0 looks pretty good right now."

Rob Ankeny, making his second consecutive start, the first time in his varsity career, earned his fifth career shutout with a 17-save effort.

"Ankeny was sharp again" Pauly said. "It’s a great bonus when you have your top goalie go down and your backup can come in and put together back-to-back efforts like Ankeny did this week.

"“The shutout was a total team effort," he added. "You have to give defensemen Patrick Daly, Gunnar Knutson, Pat Borer, Chase Mlnarik, Sam Anderson, and Jake Horton a lot of credit. They did a great job slowing the Eagles' rush and turning the puck up ice."

BSM will be idle over the weekend, the first time in four weeks, and returns to action Jan. 27, when it takes on Irondale at the Schwan's Super Rink. Game time is slated for 7:30 p.m.