Benilde-St. Margaret's Boys' Hockey

After skating to a 3-3 tie through two periods with Shattuck-St. Mary's, Benilde-St. Margaret's ran out of gas in the third period.

Giving up eight power-play chances took the wind out of the Red Knights' sails as they gave up four goals in the final frame in a 7-3 loss to the Sabres.

"As has been the case too much this season, we spent way too much time in the penalty box," BSM head coach Ken Pauly said. "Against a powerhouse like Shattuck, you are just playing with fire by taking so many penalties. It really gassed our guys and I believe that was a large reason that we didn’t have much left in the third period."

The Red Knights jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the game, getting on top with a power-play goal when Bryan Glynn tipped in a pass from Brett Patterson, eight minutes into the game.

It was the only goal of the opening frame but BSM held a 9-8 edge in shots on goal during the first period and carried some momentum into the first intermission.

"The first period was our best hockey of the season," Pauly said. "It was very exciting to see our guys play at such a high level. It was just awesome hockey."

That momentum carried into the second period as David Tranvik intercepted a pass behind the SSM goalie and was able to stuff the puck past Sabre goalie Garrett Jensen.

"It was nice to see David get rewarded with a goal tonight," Pauly stated. "He’s had some hard luck lately."

SSM then responded with three goals in an eight-minute span to take a 3-2 lead with 4:19 remaining in the middle stanza.

With the Sabres working on their fifth power-play near the end of the period, it appeared the visitors would take their one-goal lead into the final period when Christian Horn tipped a pass inside the Red Knight blue line.

The puck wound up on the stick of Will Nelson and he made a tape-to-tape pass to Horn who was streaking through the neutral zone. Horn broke in on Jensen and scored his first career short-handed goal with 37 seconds remaining in the period.

BSM was unable to take advantage of an early power-play chance in the third period and the visitors took over from there.

Blake Matejcek scored 3:07 into the final period, starting the Sabres' four-goal run and SSM outshot the Red Knights, 17-1, over the game's final 17 minutes.

"It’s too bad because our effort deserved a better score than 7-3," Pauly said. "In the end we found out some good things about our team tonight and we use that as a positive down the stretch."

BSM returns to action with a non-conference game, Tuesday, Feb. 3, when it plays Osseo. Game time is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.