PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – The St. Olaf College men's hockey team skated to a 2-2 tie against Middlebury College in the third-place game of the LayerEight Shootout on Saturday at Ronald B. Stafford Ice Arena.

Middlebury (0-2-2) scored late in the first period and early in the third to take a pair of one-goal leads, but St. Olaf (4-4-2) came back to tie the game on both occasions in the first-ever meeting between the two programs. Both teams generated just one shot on goal in the 3-on-3 overtime period as the game ended in a tie with no shootout with no advancement needed.

St. Olaf dictated most of the play over the first half of the first period, taking 12 of the first 16 shots of the game, before Middlebury flipped the script in the second half of the period by firing 13 of the final 17 shots. The Panthers were rewarded for their late-period pressure when Andrew Seaman fired a shot off the underside of the bar and in from low in the left circle with 36 seconds to go in the period after Middlebury dug the puck out of the corner.

St. Olaf got the goal back inside the first minute of the second period when first year Michael Webster tallied his first collegiate goal and point just 56 seconds in. First year Tyler Green started the play that led to the goal, driving up the ice and drawing a save from Jake Horoho. Fellow first year Joey Kennelly got to the puck on the right boards and sent the puck behind the goal to Green, who dropped it back to the top of the left circle for Webster to fire over Horoho's glove-side shoulder.

The Oles outshot the Panthers by a 20-4 margin in shots on goal in the second period, but the teams went into the second intermission still tied at 1-1. St. Olaf committed two penalties in the first 1:35 of the third period and Middlebury capitalized on the 5-on-3 power play when Paddy Mangan scored on a one-timer 1:57 into the period. Junior Ben Luscko grabbed the final goal of the game at 13:22 of the third, scoring from just inside the blue line after a loose puck rolled out to him for his first goal of the season.

Middlebury controlled the puck for most of the overtime period but only created one shot on goal. With 46 seconds to go, sophomore Gunnar Johnson made a last-ditch block to deny Chris Garbe a game-winning goal with the net open. St. Olaf got a power play with six seconds remaining and got a shot for junior Connor Kalthoff in the final seconds, but his effort was blocked.

The shot count ended 37-24 in St. Olaf's favor, but the Oles were 0-for-4 on the power play, while the Panthers were 1-for-2. Junior Thomas Lalonde had 10 of his 22 saves in the third period for St. Olaf, while Horoho had 19 of his 35 stops for Middlebury in the second period.

The Oles return to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play by hosting Augsburg University in the series opener on Friday, Dec. 1 at 7 p.m.