St. Lawrence University freshman goaltender Kyle Hayton is starting his own Cheel Arena jinx…only the jinx is on Clarkson.

Hayton made 30 saves, 13 of them in a scoreless third period and the Saints won two games in Potsdam in the same season for the first time in program history with a 2-1 ECAC victory over the Golden Knights on Saturday night. The Saints won the season series overall 2-1-1 and snapped a nine-game ECAC winless streak against the Knights.

"That was a huge victory for us," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "We haven't had a lot of success against Clarkson in league play the last few seasons, so that certainly was one monkey off our backs, but it was also a huge game in terms of where we are in the standings and keeping our momentum going down the stretch."

The Saints have now won five straight and six of their last seven and are in second place in the ECAC with 20 points on a 10-4 league record. They improved to 14-10-2 overall and put a little space between themselves and the Knights, now 10-12-4, 7-5-2.

Clarkson took the early lead ian the game when Joe Zarbo was credited with a goal at the 6:17 mark of the first period after a puck careened through skates and legs with Hayton slipping to the ice. The Saints battled back to tie it with just 46 seconds to go in the first when senior Patrick Doherty picked the upper corner on Clarkson goalie Greg Lewis from Tommy Thompson and Gunnar Hughes. It was the first goal allowed by Lewis in a span of nearly seven periods.

The Saints took the lead at 9:34 of the second when defenseman Ben Masella, playing his first game since Jan. 2, made a great pass as he circled in front of the Clarkson net and dished a pass to freshman Joe Sullivan, who put it into the unguarded side of the net for his third goal of the year and second game winner.

The rest came down to defense and the Saints were up to the task despite Clarkson pressure in the third period.

The Saints killed off two Clarkson power plays in the third and then kept the Knights from pulling Lewis for an extra attacker until just over 30 seconds remained in regulation. When the Knights did get Lewis out for the extra manpower, the Saints had two big defensive zone faceoff wins by Doherty and some solid work along the wall by Chris Martin, Doherty and Gunner Hughes to take the final seconds off the clock.

"I think we are underrated in a lot of people's minds when it comes to defense," said Carvel. "We are in the top ten nationally in defense and while a lot of it is Hayton, we didn't give up a lot of high end chances. We blocked a lot of shots and battled around the net. We did get caught going forward a couple of times, but generally we were pretty solid positionally.

"Clarkson gave a real strong push in the third, but I think we handled it pretty well," Carvel added. "We played four games with them this season and I think all four were basically coin tosses."