Penalties proved costly for the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team as the Saints gave Ferris State eight power play opportunities and cut two of their own short with penalties while a man down as Ferris turned back the Saints 4-2 in the official NCAA season opener for both teams at Appleton Arena Friday night.

Junior center Travis Ouellette scored two goals, the second into an empty net, to lead the Bulldogs to their third straight win over the Saints after a sweep in Big Rapids last season in a game which included a lot of end-to-end action and some great scoring chances for both teams

The Saints had the best scoring chances of a scoreless first period, but Greg Carey had a shot saved from point blank range and George Hughes had a shot go off the inside of the post and stay out of the net. Junior defenseman Jordan Dewey finally broke the scoring ice when he ripped a shot from the left point to the upper right corner of the net off a pass by Kyle Flanagan with Carey also assisting on the play at 13:05 of the second.

The Bulldogs came back to tie it when freshman TJ Schlueter tucked home a power play rebound at 15:54 for his first collegiate goal.

Ouellette snapped a 1-1 tie with a power play goal at 3:21 of the third period and then made it a 4-2 game with a backhander into the empty net from outside the blue line with 12 seconds to play to wrap up the win.

"You can't take that many penalties and expect to be successful," said Saint associate head coach Mike Hurlbut. "We did some good things out there at times, but we shot ourselves in the foot with the penalties."

After Ouellette put the Bulldogs in front, junior wing Kyle Bonis went end-to-end to make it a 3-1 game with the teams skating four-on-four at 15:19. The Saints got that one back in the same four-on-four as Flanagan put away a rebound of a shot by Carey exactly a minute later to make it a 3-2 game.

Sophomore Matt Weninger, who received two goals or less of offensive support from his Saint teammates in 17 of 28 starts a year ago, had the same thing happen on Friday, making 17 saves while senior Taylor Nelson made 11 of his 23 saves in the third period for Ferris State.

The two teams will play again at 4:30 Saturday to complete the weekend series.