St. Lawrence University senior Tommy Thompson scored two carbon copy goals as part of a burst of three goals in 3:17 by the Saints and sophomore goaltender Kyle Hayton recorded his third shutout of the season to lift the Saints to a big 3-0 ECAC Hockey victory at RPI Friday night.

The Saints, who have now won three in a row and four of their last five, were locked up in a goaltender duel between Hayton and the Engineers Jason Kasdorf until Mike Marnell set up the game winner with just over five minutes to play. With the win, the Saints jump into fifth in the ECAC standings, two points behind fourth-place Yale.

Marnell, returning to action after missing six games with an injury took a lead pass from Christian Horn and stationed himself in the right faceoff circle. Marnell fed Thompson as he drove hard to the net and Thompson took the pass in stride and redirected it past Kasdorf for his sixth of the year at 14:53. It went to 2-0 on a nearly identical play 2:51 later with Horn the passer this time. Horn set up in the faceoff circle after taking the puck in alone and again Thompson went hard to the net, directing the pass inside the far post for his second of the night.

"I thought we created a lot of offense, and we needed to against Kasdorf," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "Tommy's goal, the game winner, was a team goal…the guys had good speed up the ice and Tommy drove to the net and took the great pass from Marnell. It was huge having Marnell back in the lineup…his speed and his puck possession is really important to the team. I thought all four lines were going well tonight."

The Engineers pulled Kasdorf for an extra attacker with just over two minutes left, but that backfired when Gavin Bayreuther sent Drew Smolcynski into the RPI end and Smolcynski fed a wide-open Jacob Pritchard at the goal mouth for Pritchard's third of the year at 18:10 to complete the scoring.

"Kyle played very well, but that was a 20 man shutout tonight. I thought the chances they had were all coming down the wall where Hayton came out and took the angle away," added Carvel. "I didn't think they had too many odd man rushes except on a shorthanded try, but I thought we were really good tonight…we stuck to our game plan and as the game wore on we got better and better."

Hayton made some big saves among his 34 for the game, 26 of which came in the first two periods. He moved to within one of Bill Sloan's career shutout record of nine set in the 1950s. Kasdorf, who got some help from the crossbar on a Mike Laidley drive which looked like it might break the scoring drought earlier in the third period, finished with 31 saves for the Engineers, who sustained just their third loss of the season.