NEW ULM — When New Ulm Steel head coach Alex North was asked what best described his team’s game with the St. Louis Jr. Blues Friday night at the New Ulm Civic Center, he said it was more of a marathon than a sprint.

Nick O’Brien’s goal at the 11:15 mark of the third period broke a 5-5 tie and lifted the Steel to a 6-5 win over the Jr. Blues.

Lahoussine Salama, Bryce Hall, Charlie Sullivan, Charlie Kielty and Jack Laser each scored a goal for the Steel, who improved to 3-3 on the young season.

Gus Cantwell, Josh Gulden and Blake Biermaier each had two assists, with Harrison Albrecht, Laser, Hall and Macrae Gordon each adding a helper.

Alex Benson started for the Steel in goal and gave up all five goals before being replaced by Dixon Ehlers midway through the third period.

“This was a grind-it-out game,” North added. “We did not bring our best game forward and they took advantage of that. But ultimately we dug deep and found a way to win.”

The Steel, who host St.Louis again at 7:10 p.m. Saturday at the Civic Center, jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first period when Salama scored on a power-play goal at the 10:21 mark and Bryce Hall followed that up with a goal just under six minutes later.

But then several unusual things happened.

The Jr. Blues cut the lead to 2-1 on a Carson Pishkur goal late in the first period and then opened the second period with goals from Pishkur and a power-play score from Matthew Mahoney three minutes later for a 3-2 St. Louis lead.

But following Mahoney’s power-play goal at the 5:02 mark of the period, the Steel did two things. First, they responded with goals from Sullivan, Kielty and Laser in a span of 11 minutes for a 5-3 New Ulm lead.

Secondly, the Steel did not allow a shot on goal for the final 14 minutes of the second period.

“We just got back to keeping it simple — getting pucks out and getting them deep and forecheck hard,” North said. “When we had the puck, it was hard to get it from us.”

But as good as the Steel did defensively in those last 14 minutes of the second period, the same could not be said about the first 52 seconds of the third period when the Blues tied the game with two goals in that span, forcing North to pull Benson and insert Ehlers.

“Our defensive zone was not very good,” North said. “And unfortunately Alex took the brunt of that, which I did not think that he deserved. But if they were not going to play in front of him I was not going to let him deal with that.”

New Ulm then got the game winner off of the stick of O’Brien getting an important win.

“That is the most important part,” North said. “We think that this division is the strongest in the NA3HL.”

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