Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Colby Nickel (20) celebrates his second-period goal with teammate Zach Dalzell (21) during the New Ulm Steel’s NA3HL game with the Minnesota Loons on Saturday night at the New Ulm Civic Center.

NEW ULM — It was a win that the Steel needed.

Colby Nickel recorded a hat trick, with Gus Cantwell and Zach Siegert each adding two goals as the Steel pounded the Minnesota Loons 9-2 Saturday night in an NA3HL game at the New Ulm Civic Center.

Connor Sousa and Vance Kleinschmidt each added a goal.

Lahoussine Salama added three assists, with Cantwell, Harrison Albrecht, Josh Delange, Jack Laser and Zach Dalzell each adding two helpers.

Steel goalie Alex Benson stopped 32 of 34 Loons shots.

“We finally put together a full 60 minutes of hockey,” Steel coach Curtis Doell said. “Benson did really well in the nets. We had 54 shots on goal, which was a season-high for us, as was the nine goals in the game.

“We have been preaching to get pucks to the net and we have been preaching to play more of a dump-and-chase game when we did not have anything and were successful.”

The Steel jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the first period. Nickel scored his first goal off of a power-play at the 10:22 mark of the first period before Conner Sousa upped the lead to 2-0 on assists from Parker Dorn and Siegert.

Siegert increased the lead to 3-0 early in the second period when he grabbed a lose puck at center ice and broke in alone on Loons goalie Owen Reeve, beating him with a backhander.

The Loons cut the lead to 3-1 before the Steel responded with a goal from Kleinschmidt.

The Loons pulled to within 4-2, but a second goal from Nickel — again on the power play — and Siegert’s second goal upped the lead to 6-2 after two periods.

Goals from Cantwell, Nickel’s hat-trick goal and Cantwell’s second goal of the game at the 15:34 mark pushed the Steel to 9-2.

“Tonight was a good night to get back into that win column and this is a game we can build off of for Wednesday when we host Alexandria,” Doell said.