At the end of every Thursday practice, Syracuse competes in a team shootout. The loser has to wear an orange helmet — a hockey dunce cap of sorts — in warmups before the next day’s game.

On Friday, it was freshman Abby Moloughney sporting the orange cap as the players stretched and skated through their pregame routine. Hours later, she found herself in the same situation that failed her the day before: at center ice, with just the goalie to beat.

“Honestly, it was pretty nerve-wracking,” Moloughney said. “Especially as a freshman, I felt a lot of weight on my shoulders to put that in.”

Moloughney’s successful penalty shot capped Syracuse’s (9-19-3, 9-6-2 College Hockey America) come-from-behind 5-4 win over last place Lindenwood (7-19-3, 3-12-2). The Orange were down 4-2 heading into the third period, but two goals in the final 20 minutes brought the game to overtime. In extra time, Moloughney swerved through the attacking zone, flipped the puck in between the inside and outside of her stick, slid across the net and finished with an elevated left-handed wrist shot. Moloughney has been practicing the move, she said, and on Friday, it was the decisive game-winner.

“I was thinking she’s saving it for this,” captain Lindsay Eastwood said. “This is her moment. She’s gotta redeem herself, and that’s exactly what she did.”

Moments before the penalty shot, Moloughney fielded a pass from defender Allie Munroe in stride through the neutral zone. She had a step on Lindenwood’s defenders, but the Lions’ Hannah Alt recovered just in time to pull Moloughney’s jersey down before she could get a shot off. 41 seconds into overtime, Alt was assessed a holding penalty, sending everybody off the ice — except for Moloughney and Sophie Wolf, the Lions’ goalie.

Wolf and Moloughney played on the same club team growing up, SU head coach Paul Flanagan said, so he was worried that Wolf knew Moloughney’s tricks. Instead, Moloughney fooled her former teammate.

“At first when she made that move, I thought, ‘Uh oh, she’s running out of real estate,’” Flanagan said. “It was actually a pretty nice shot to have that little room and get it up top. I thought the goalie had her.”

To give Moloughney the chance to win it in overtime, Syracuse had to overcome a two-goal deficit heading into the third period. After first period goals by Jessica DiGirolamo and Anonda Hoppner, SU struggled in the second period and allowed two unanswered scores to go down 4-2.

In the locker room during the second intermission, Flanagan motivated his team by reminding them of the emotional significance of the game — Sherry Goodnough, a former player’s mother, recently passed away from pancreatic cancer. Each SU jersey had Goodnough’s slogan, “Dig Deep,” on the name plate.

“(The speech) set in our hearts and in our minds that we’ve got to come through here,” Eastwood said. “This game’s not for us. This is for something much bigger than us.”

With the added inspiration, Syracuse quickly cut Lindenwood’s lead. Eastwood snuck in a power play goal two minutes into the third period, and Emma Polaski tied it with her own power play score. Polaski, the team’s leading scorer, recorded a goal and two helpers.

For the remainder of the third period, the Orange clung to the draw. On a Lindenwood breakaway, defenseman Allie Munroe recovered and slid across the ice, sacrificing her body to break up the play. Goalie Ady Cohen, who struggled early, made several key saves down the stretch. In the game, SU outshot Lindenwood 39-16.

Then, Moloughney’s penalty shot broke the draw. Just hours after wearing the orange helmet in warmups, she celebrated with her teammates in a mosh pit.

“I knew she was going to score,” Polaski said. “I absolutely knew. She lost the shootout, actually, yesterday in practice. So we were like, she’s definitely going to redeem herself and score this one.”

Published on February 22, 2019 at 11:21 pm

Contact Danny: dremerma@syr.edu | @DannyEmerman