St. Lawrence University's hockey team got two goals from junior center Sean McGovern and strong play from all four lines as the Saints skated to a 5-2 win at Brown in the ECAC Hockey opener for both teams on Friday night.

The Saints improve to 5-3-1 on the season and won their ECAC opener for the first time since 2010-11 while Brown will take a 1-1-0 overall mark and a 0-1 league record into its Saturday night game with Clarkson. The Saints will play at Yale on Saturday night.

"I thought we played extremely well five-on-five with the exception of a five minute stretch in the second period when they scored their power play goal and the shorthander," said coach Greg Carvel. "It was a great sign after Brown's comeback to see the guys reset and take the game back. We finished out the second period strong and played very well positionally in the third period."

Kyle Hayton turned in another strong effort in goal for the Saints and made 24 saves for his second straight win while the Saint offense put 30 shots on the Brown net, converting on five of them. Tyler Steel finished with 24 saves for the Bears, 15 of them coming in the second period.

"It was a pretty quiet night for Kyle compared to what he has been seeing, but he did make one big save in a flurry in the third," Carvel added.

The Saints jumped out to the early lead as McGovern scored his first of the season and second of his career as he tipped Woody Hudson's shot from the point past Steel. Rookie defenseman Matt Purmal earned his first collegiate assist on the play which came 9:28 into the game. It went to 2-0 just over two minutes later when Ryan Lough wristed a shot inside the far post after taking a pass from Chris Martin with rookie forward Joe Sullivan earning his first collegiate assist at 11:58.

While the Saints outshot Brown 15-10 in the second period, the Bears scored both of the goals to pull even at 2-2. Massimo Lamacchia got the first on a Brown power play as the puck was worked loose behind the Saint net and popped out to Lamacchia for a point-blank shot at 7:22 and Davey Middleton tied it on a shorthanded breakaway at 12:48 with the Saints on a major power play.

SLU put it away in the third as Tommy Thompson scored the game winner, picking up a rebound of a shot by Pat Doherty and putting it back past Steel at 5:46 with Lough also assisting for a 3-2 lead. Sullivan then scored his first collegiate goal on a shorthanded breakaway at 12:29 to make it 4-2 and McGovern capped the scoring with a hard shot under the cross bar at 16:44 with Justin Bruckel and Hudson assisting to make it a 5-2 final.

"We got big goals from all four lines..." Carvel said. "Sullivan's shorty was huge and defensively Chris Martin did a great job carrying it out of our zone and Matt Purmal looked very good in his first game back after injury. It was a quality road win...you're not going to get 60 strong minutes every game, but we got at least 50 tonight."