The Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team opened up its new campaign with a 5-3 win over the Bentley Falcons on Saturday night at High Point Solutions Arena.

The Bobcats scored on three of eight power play chances en route to the victory.

Still, Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold wasn’t completely satisfied with the Quinnipiac’s performance.

“We need to get better, we certainly did some good things but that’s not how we’re supposed to play,” Pecknold said. “We were fortunate to win that game.”

Pecknold emphasized that the pace of play wasn’t the way the Bobcats hoped to play.

“We didn’t play our game, it was just run and gun.”

Freshman Bo Pieper scored the first goal of the new campaign, and his first collegiate goal on a three-on-one wrist shot that went past Bentley goalie Gabe Antoni with a little more than 12 minutes to go in the first period.

“I was just thankful that I was able to help the team in the best way I could,” Pieper said.

Following duplicate roughing calls on Bentley’s Matt Sieckhaus and Quinnipiac’s Andrew Taverner, Bentley’s Max French scored by skating from the right and slipping one past Quinnipiac goalie Michael Garteig to knot things up 1-1.

Travis St. Denis broke the tie in the final minute of the period with a goal from the crease following a Connor Clifton slap shot.

Bentley, again, tied the game up eight minutes into the second period. Andrew Gladiuk got an open lane and wristed one past Garteig to make it 2-2.

Then, midway through the second period, Steve Weinstein poked the puck in the net during a scrum around Garteig, but the goal would be reversed by officials, who gave Gladiuk a goalie interference penalty instead.

On the next face off, Matthew Peca sniped in a shot top shelf past Antoni and the Bobcats took a 3-2.

Sam Anas added to the Bobcats lead just 37 seconds in the third period, scoring off a Travis St. Denis assist to take a 4-2 lead.

Following two penalties by Tanner MacMaster and Connor Clifton, Max French put Bentley back into the game with a wrist shot from the point that made it 4-3.

“With a two-goal lead and four minutes left in the game, we can’t get those penalties,” Pecknold said.

Sam Anas put the game away with 26 seconds left in the game with an open net goal, his second goal of the game.

Michael Garteig recorded 14 saves on the night in net.

“If you work hard, you can still win with mistakes,” Peca said.

Five freshman played tonight for Quinnipiac, who improves to 1-0-0 on the season.

“We had jitters early on, but after that we’re just playing a game that we love,” Pieper said.

The Bobcats have a home-and-home series next weekend against No. 17 UMass-Lowell. The Bobcats travel to Lowell, Mass. on Friday, and the River Hawks come to Hamden Saturday night.