Dartmouth remained winless, while the No. 20 Quinnipiac Bobcats stayed undefeated in ECAC Hockey after beating the Big Green 4-2 Saturday night at the TD Bank Sports Center.
Junior forward Scott Zurevinski led Quinnipiac with two scores, including a pivotal insurance goal in the third period. He also scored one of Quinnipiac’s three first period goals.
“We came out strong,” Zurevinski said. “I thought the pucks were going our way, and we were lucky to get three in the first period.”
Dartmouth head coach Bob Gaudet said his team just didn’t have the same luck Quinnipiac had.
“I’m disappointed in some of the breakdowns that we had,” Gaudet said. “But I’m sure they felt the same way, it just didn’t end up in the back of the net for us.”
And Dartmouth dominated the second period, responding with two unanswered goals and outshooting the Bobcats 19-5.
“We let Dartmouth back in the game,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said. “We took some bad penalties in the second. We need to clean that area up. Ultimately, we found a way to grit out a win. We did a good job at home.”
Quinnipiac was called for 11 penalties and spent a third of the game playing at least one man down. Pecknold had high remarks for senior Eric Lampe’s contributions to the team, including his penalty killing proficiency.
“Lampe has been excellent,” Pecknold said. “He’s our best player. Not just from an offense standpoint; he’s great on the penalty kill, and he’s great defensively.”
Gaudet opted for sophomore goaltender James Mello to take over net-duties in the second period for Jody O’Neill, and said the move changed the momentum of the game.
“I tried to do my best and get our team back in the game tonight,” Mello said, who played his second game of his career out of relief at the TD Bank Sports Center. “We really battled back and got a couple of nice goals. It was definitely an improvement from the first period.”
Quinnipiac was held to just one shot in a span of almost seven minutes late in the second period.
With back-and-forth action to start the third period, Zurevinski netted an unassisted goal in the eighth minute to put an end to Dartmouth’s charge.
“It gives you a little bit of a cushion,” Pecknold said of Zurevinski’s second goal. “I thought they were really coming hard for the third period. It deflated them a little bit – not entirely – but that was a big goal.”
Quinnipiac’s four-goal game was nothing new to them, as it was the seventh time this season the Bobcats scored at least four goals in a game. Their 4.22 goals per game ranks second in ECAC Hockey, only trailing Cornell.
Dartmouth slipped to a conference-worst 0-5-0 record with the loss, while Quinnipiac climbed past Colgate into first place.
