Albert Lea High School boys’ hockey coach Roy Nystrom felt a few too many of his players were a little too offensive-minded Thursday night.

It resulted in a few more goals than expected &045; for the opposition.

Mankato East made it interesting with a pair of third-period goals as Albert Lea won 7-4 at the City Arena.

&uot;Any win is a good win,&uot; said Nystrom. &uot;It wasn’t pretty. It was ugly. We had way too many penalties and gave them too many offensive opportunities, but we still won the game. Not playing in a week hurt us. We were rusty, no question about that.&uot;

The Tigers improved to 6-5 in the Big Nine and 10-9 overall while East fell to 4-6 and 9-9.

Casey Schumaker and Dan Breuer scored two goals apiece for the Tigers. Scoring one each were Tony Dugstad, Dustin Trail and Travis McKinney. Assists went to Schumaker, Josh Tubbs and Trail. Matt Tubbs was in goal. Albert Lea outshot East 23-19 and the Tigers had eight penalties to the Cougars’ five.

&uot;We had a lot of defensive lapses,&uot; said Nystrom. &uot;So many guys tonight were just way too offensive-minded.&uot;

The Albert Lea junior varsity won 4-0, with two goals by Beau Larson and one apiece by Peter Bracker and Anthony Hoiseth. Evan Long was the goalie.

The Tigers host Luverne in a 3 p.m. game Saturday.