NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Five different skaters found the net as the Yale University men's hockey team skated to a 5-2 exhibition win over McGill before an announced crowd of 2,255 at Ingalls Rink, Saturday.

The game was added to the schedule only 11 days ago after a team from China unexpectedly canceled their tour of NCAA games. McGill is now 16-15 lifetime against Yale in a series that dates back more than a century to a 2-0 McGill conquest on Jan. 1, 1913 in Boston.

Yale, ranked No. 15 in the latest USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Poll, led 3-1 after the opening period and 4-2 after two. They never trailed in the contest and outshot the No. 10 ranked Redmen 30-28.

The brother act of Mitchell and Evan Smith scored for the Bulldogs, along with Dante Palecco, Will D'Orsi and Joe Snively. Evan Smith had the top highlight of the Yale goals when he dangled a defender and fired the puck stick side with just 10.7 seconds left in the first period to put the home team up 3-1.

Both McGill markers were scored by freshmen forwards. Nicolas Poulin of Blainville, Que., narrowed the gap to 2-1 with his seventh of the season at 13:39 of the first period and Jordan Fournier of Dorval, Que., tallied his third career marker to make it 3-2 at 2:42 of the middle stanza.

Snively struck for the lone Yale power-play goal as the Bulldogs went 1-for-3, while McGill was 0-for-1.

"We had a lot of really high-danger scoring opportunities that we were unable to cash in on," said head coach Kelly Nobes, whose record slipped to 249-114-3 overall in nine seasons behind the McGill bench. "I thought that Yale was very opportunistic. We turned some pucks over in bad areas and they made us pay for it. We had some things were were looking to implement tonight in terms of performance objectives and I thought we were good on those. For our first game in almost month (since Dec. 1), we did some good things and certainly gained from the experience of being down here against a good team like Yale that plays a fast, structured, high-tempo game."

It was the first game since Dec. 11 for Yale, which improved to 8-3-2 overall and will host UConn on New Year's Eve.

Both teams dressed three goalies and Yale had each play 20 minutes.. Sam Tucker (9 saves) got the start and was credited with the victory, Corbin Kaczperski (9) took the second period and Nicholas MacNab, who had the two best saves of the night, finished the game with eight stops.

Louis-Philip Guindon played the entire game for McGill and saved 25 of 30 shots while taking the loss.

"This game came about at the last minute and it worked in well with our training schedule after a long break (for exams and holidays),' added Nobes. "We were able to fit in the trip (a 470-kilometre bus ride) and it should serve us well in preparation for a good tough start in the second semester. We have a few more practices ahead of us and we'll be ready to go."

McGill, which evened their record at 11-11-0 overall, including a 10-4-3 mark in regular season play, returns to action next week when they host division-leading Ottawa (13-1-2) and UQTR (9-6-2) on Jan. 4-5, respectively, in a pair of crucial contests at McConnell Arena.

GAME NOTES: McGill dressed a single-game team record 25 players, including three goalies, nine defencemen and 13 forwards.  The only ones who did not dress were injured forwards Christophe Lalonde and Aaron Armstrong... Forwards Samuel Tremblay and Quinn Syrydiuk were both shaken up in the game but neither incident appeared serious...  McGill's two remaining matchups with Concordia have switched venues to accommodate the Desautels faculty of management's Winter Carnival Week on the campus. The game slated for Jan. 11 has been moved to McConnell Arena and will serve as the Carnival game with a 7 p.m. faceoff. McGill is 15-1 in Carnival play... Yale sophomore Phil Kemp and first-year Jack St. Ivany are in British Columbia with the Team USA at the IIHF world junior championships. The two defencemen helped Team USA win its first two games with a third contest slated for late Saturday night against Sweden… Former Yale captain John Hayden and the Chicago Blackhawks skate against the Boston Bruins in the 2019 NHL Winter Classic at Notre Dame Stadium on Tuesday… Ex-Eli forward Kenny Agostino scored his 2^nd goal of the year Saturday in a game at Tampa Bay.

SCORING SUMMARY