After almost four weeks off, men's ACHA Division II ice hockey came ready to play in a 5-2 win over Liberty Friday night at the LaHaye Ice Center in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Lions quickly scored three goals in the first period and then coasted to the road victory.

Nick Jones set up Michael Mullen at 4:15 to give Lindenwood a 1-0 lead. Zac Maupin was next in line off a feed from Chase McClellan at 12:40 to double the advantage, then Praveen Dhaliwal netted his first of the season on a play set up by Jacob Behnen and Jack Louko at 14:44.

Trailing 3-0, the Flames had a chance to get on the board early in the second when Trent Sylvester was called for slashing at 2:26, but the Lions killed off the penalty and then took advantage of a major slashing call against Liberty midway through the period. It took until the fourth minute of the power play, but Lindenwood stretched its lead to 4-0 when Brett Robinson scored with help from Ryan Granville and Stanley Lucas at 14:26.

The second period ended with a major checking from behind penalty and game misconduct against Liberty that carried over into the third. The Lions were not able to capitalize on that power play and then fumbled the puck moments later leading to an unassisted score from the Flames at 5:42 that cut the lead to 4-1. The two teams exchanged pleasantries after the play and when the dust settled, Lindenwood was short-handed with two in the box for roughing compared to one for Liberty. The Lions were within 44-seconds of killing off that power play when the Flames were called for interference at 7:26. When the round of roughing penalties expired, Lindenwood went on its own power play. Just 23-seconds later, Lucas sounded the horn off a nice pass from Jones to make it 5-1 at 8:05.

Liberty kept pushing and that effort earned an interference call on the Lions at 10:54 and a power play goal at 11:08 to make it 5-2, but that proved to be the final score of the game.

Lindenwood outshot the Flames 20-8 in the first period and 44-26 overall. Cole Wheaton stopped 24 of the 26 pucks he faced to earn the victory in goal for the Lions who scored twice on five power play chances.

With the win, Lindenwood improved to 22-2 on the season and extended a streak of victories to eight in a row dating back to late November. The Lions take on Liberty again on Saturday with the opening faceoff scheduled for 1 p.m. EST at the LaHaye Ice Center.