A power outage on the Saint power play hurt St. Lawrence University’s men’s hockey team in a 3-1 loss to 14th-ranked Union College in Schenectady Friday night.

The Saints went scoreless in six power play chances in what was a very close game from start to finish, and wasted a solid goaltending performance by freshman Matt Weninger as the Dutchmen won their fourth straight in the series and improved to 12-6-3 overall and 4-2-1 in league play, snapping a three game win streak for the Saints, now 6-9-3 overall and 3-5-0 in league play.

“We competed well against a very good hockey team,” said Saint coach Joe Marsh. “We had the opportunity to win it, but struggled a on the power play. Some of it was a very aggressive power play by Union and some of it was some missed passes by us.

“All in all, you can’t complain about that kind of effort against a good hockey team on the road,” Marsh added.

Union took an early lead on a bounce off the end boards 5:06 into the first period. Senior Justin Pallos was all alone in front of Saint goalie Matt Weninger and a shot from the point by defenseman Mat Bodie caromed hard off the end boards and right to Pallos in front, who tucked it past Weninger for his fifth of the season. It was the only goal of a fast-moving first period which included several big defensive plays for the Saints to keep it a one-goal game. Weninger made 13 first period saves while Union’s Keith Kinkaid stopped a dozen shots at the other end of the rink.

The second period was another end-to-end affair with Union killing off a trio of Saint power play chances. SLU finally pulled even with 24.6 seconds to go in the period as Aaron Bogosian took the puck from Kyle Flanagan and fed Greg Carey at the top of the faceoff circles and Carey walked in on Kinkaid, scoring his 10th of the year from point blank range to tie the game at 1-1. Bogosian’s assist gave him points for the fifth time in six games since returning from a knee injury.

The Dutchmen regained the lead 3:51 into the third period when Matt Hatch worked the puck off the side boards and fed Kelly Zajac who came all alone down the middle and put his eighth of the year past Weninger in a one-on-one with the goalie. The Saints had two power plays following the go-ahead goal for the Dutchmen, but couldn’t convert. Sophomore defenseman George Hughes hit the post on a shot from the point with 4:50 to go and Union finally iced the win when Kyle Bodie scored an empty net goal from just outside the Saint blue line with 54 seconds to play. Weniger finished with 23 saves for the Saints, who scored less than two goals for the sixth time in his 14 starts this season. Kinkaid had 26 saves to earn the win for the Dutchmen.