The St. Lawrence University men's hockey team opened its ECAC Hockey schedule with a 6-2 loss at Rensselaer on Friday night in Troy, New York.

Zach Risteau scored his fourth of the season for his team-leading 11th point for St. Lawrence, while Ted McGeen notched his first of the year with a late third period tally to conclude the scoring. Jacob Nielsen also picked up his first point of the season with an assist on McGeen's goal.

RPI led 3-0 after the first period, with Patrick Polino getting the home team on the board at 6:08 of the opening frame when he buried a rebound at the edge of the crease to beat St. Lawrence starter Francis Boisvert.

Will Reilly tacked on a power play goal at the 11-minute mark, just 14 seconds into RPI's first man advantage opportunity of the night and Jake Marrello added the eventual game-winning goal at 18:45.

Risteau got the Saints on the board and cut the deficit to 3-1 with a power play goal of his own at 3:33 of the middle frame. The Lakeville, Minnesota native spun out of pressure on the half wall and took a wrister from the edge of the circle that deflected off an RPI defender who had gone down on a knee to block the shot and behind netminder Owen Savory. David Jankowski and Jordan Steinmetz assisted on the play.

Later in the second period, RPI regained a three-goal lead when Chase Zieky beat Boisvert with a shot along the ice from the left circle to make it a 4-1 game.

RPI's Ture Linden and Mike Gornall added two goals in a span of 26 seconds in the opening two minutes of the third period to push the Engineers lead to 6-1.

Boisvert was replaced by sophomore Emil Zetterquist in the pipes for St. Lawrence after the Engineers' sixth goal. He finished with 19 saves in 41:15, while Zetterquist made seven saves in the final 18:30.

With time winding down in the third, McGeen took advantage of a broken play on a rush into the RPI zone for his first of the season and the final goal of the game.

The play started when Andrew McIntyre sent a cross-ice pass to Nielsen on the entry, which skipped over an RPI stick in the circle. Nielsen's shot was blocked and the loose puck skipped to McGeen on the back door for an easy finish behind Savory who had come out of the crease to cut off the angle on a Nielsen attempt and couldn't recover.

St. Lawrence had four power play opportunities in the third period alone, including a full minute of 5-on-3, but was unable to convert. The Saints finished the night 1-for-7, while RPI went 1-for-5.

The Saints outshot RPI through the final 20 minutes, but the Engineers finished with a 32-22 advantage in shots on goal on Friday night.

With the loss, St. Lawrence drops to 2-6-1 on the season and 0-1-0 in ECAC Hockey games. RPI improves to 4-3-0 and 2-1-0 against conference opponents.

St. Lawrence will look to split its Capital District road trip on Saturday at Union in Schenectady, New York. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.