WINONA, Minn. — For two periods, Finlandia gave the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team all it could handle Friday evening.

For two periods.

The Cardinals, showing some of the rust commonly attributed to playing your season-opening, struggled to a 4-3 lead after two periods against the Lions. But a five-goal, third-period outburst — fueled by a pair of shorthanded goals from junior Al Schumacher (Oakdale, Minn.) — transformed the nonconference nail-biter into a Cardinal rout as SMU cruised to a 9-3 nonconference win.

"It's always good to get that first win under you belt," said SMU coach Don Olson. "Obviously, we were a little rusty out there, but overall I was fairly pleased with the way we played."

Especially in the first and third periods.

The Cardinals peppered Finlandia goalie Mario Paoli with 21 first-period shots, but managed just a single goal — that coming off the stick of Jason Fillipp (Fox River Grove, Ill.) at the 6:51 mark. The Lions knotted the game at 1-1 before the first period ended as Joe Van Tassell banged home a rebound past SMU goalie Dave Rogalski (Spring Lake Park, Minn.).

"I thought we played very well in the first period — we created a lot of very good scoring opportunities," said Olson, whose team held a 21-11 advantage in shots on goal through the first 20 minutes. "But you have to give Finlandia a lot of credit, they didn't back down and really came at us hard.

"(Finlandia) took us out of our game a little in the second period — but part of that was because we took too many foolish penalties," continued Olson, whose team was whistled for eight second-period penalties. "We spent so much time killing penalties that we never got back into the rhythm and were just out of sync a bit."

Mark Gryniewski (Shoreview, Minn.) and Schumacher gave SMU a 3-1 lead midway through the second period, but back-to-back goals by Finlandia's Bob Rangus tied the game 3-3. Schumacher gave the Cardinals the lead for good, scoring his second goal with six seconds remaining in the period.

The Cardinals — led by Schumacher — picked up where they left off in the third period, as Schumacher scored twice, while Sam Phillips (Red Wing, Minn.), B.J. Gaustad (Portland, Ore.) and Colin Emans (Hutchinson, Minn.) all beat Paoli before the third period was 11 minutes old.

"I was very pleased with the way we bounced back in the third period and returned to playing the game the way we are capable of playing," said OIson, whose team plays host to the Lions again Saturday afternoon (2:05 p.m.). "Hopefully we can take that (third-period) momentum and carry it over into Saturday's game."