Junior wing Tommy Thompson scored on a pair of breakaways and St. Lawrence exploded for five second period goals en route a 7-1 win over Union College and its seventh straight win in ECAC Hockey action at Appleton Arena in Canton on Saturday night.

The Saints had their most productive period since the second game of the season in the second period and opened up a 6-0 lead after two. It went to 7-9 midway through the third before Union freshman Ryan Scarfo spoiled Kyle Hayton's shutout bid with just 1:01 to go in the game. SLU has now won eight of its last nine, all in league play and remains in second place in the ECAC at 12-4-0 in league play and 16-10-2 overall. The Saints trail Quinnipiac by three points in the standings and the two teams meet on Friday night.

The current seven-game win streak is the longest for a Saint team since the 1999-2000 team, which went 27-8-2 and made the NCAA Frozen Four. That time opened the year 8-0 and then had two nine-game win streaks during the year.

Thompson scored his sixth of the year at 13:13 of the first period as he took a pass near the Union blue line from Gunnar Hughes and broke in on Union starter Colin Stevens, tucking the puck past the goalie as he cut across the goal mouth.

"I thought it was a real close game for 25 minutes," said Saint coach Greg Carvel. "I thought they came out with more jump than we did, and we were a little fortunate they didn't cash in on a couple of chances early. Then we were very opportunistic in the second period and used our speed to great advantage."

The Saints blew it open in the second period. Freshman Joe Sullivan started the barrage as he took a lead pass from Brian Ward, got a step on the Union defense and tucked one past Stevens' outstretched pad as he skated across the crease 43 seconds into the period. Sophomore Alexander Dahl buried a rebound of a shot by defenseman Ben Masella at 1:50 and Thompson intercepted a Union pass on a power play and broke away shorthanded, putting his seventh of the year past Union backup goaltender Alex Sakellaropoulos at 5:40 to make it a 4-0 game. Junior Sean McGovern scored his sixth of the year and freshman defenseman Nolan Gluchowski scored his fourth on a power play at 17:42 for the big Saint lead after two perods.

Freshman Ryan Lough made it a 7-0 game at 9:50 of the third as 14 different Saint players had points in the game. Union freshman Ryan Scarfo spoiled Hayton's bid for a Saint season record fifth shutout at 18:59 with a hard shot to the upper corner for his ninth goal of the year.

"Not getting the shutout for Kyle was about the only disappointing thing tonight," Carvel added. "Our compete level was excellent and we spread our scoring throughout the lineup."

Hayton, who has allowed just 1.33 goals per game and has a .958 save percentage in SLU's 8-1 league streak since the start of the new year finished with 32 saves while Stevens and Sakellaropoulos combined for 31 saves for Union.