HAMDEN, Conn – Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey recovered from Friday’s overtime loss to Maine and sent the Black Bears home with a decisive 4-1 win Saturday night.
“I thought it was better tonight,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “We have to clean up the penalties though, we’ve had a problem with that all year long, we gotta grow up a little bit.”
Quinnipiac committed six penalties tonight, one of which was a five minute major by freshman forward Andon Cerbone for contact-to-the-head with six minutes left to play in the third period.
And yet neither side was able to net a power-play goal throughout the entire game.
“Obviously this is a huge game for us, coming off of last night,” senior defenseman Cooper Moore said. “I think the (penalty kills) really gave us energy there.”
While both sides came into tonight with fire behind them, it took Quinnipiac 10 shots and Maine 13 in the first 10 minutes of the game for the score to open.
Maine junior defenseman David Breazeale snuck a shot past Quinnipiac’s senior goaltender Vinny Duplessis to give Black Bears the lead. A minute and 10 seconds later, graduate defenseman CJ McGee answered to tie the game.
“(The puck) just happened to come to me and I was like, ‘I’ll just shoot and see what happens’ and I got the goal so that was nice,” McGee said.
That seemed to have woken up Quinnipiac’s offense as the Bobcats did not leave Maine’s defensive zone for the remainder of the first period.
To give Bobcats the much needed upper-hand – as Maine was not deterred by unrelenting pressure from Quinnipiac – senior forward Travis Treloar grabbed the puck from behind the blue line and skated it all the way to net his fourth goal of the season. His unassisted goal was promptly followed by Taylor Swift’s “I did something bad” playing from the speakers.
Despite many chances, Maine was not able to even the score. Even after Duplessis almost slid the puck into his own net before catching it and another chance where the puck ended up behind him but not across the line – Maine wasn’t able to beat the senior goaltender again, as he tallied 25 saves tonight.
“(Duplessis) tracks it well, he’s a good goalie, he knows how to win games,” Pecknold said.
Quinnipiac had its own fair share of chances at the end of the second period that once again went unsuccessful. Junior forward Cristophe Tellier was handed back-to-back shots right in front of the net, both of which went just high.
It wasn’t until the last minute of the second period that the score finally changed, freshman forward Mason Marcellus beating Maine senior goaltender Victor Ostman on a wraparound.
With such eventful two periods, the final one almost felt boring in comparison. Until Cerbone’s penalty – followed by a hooking call on freshman forward Matthew McGroarty right as the Bobcats returned to even strength – that left Quinnipiac with four skaters till the end of the game.
The Black Bears took Ostman out of the net to better their chances with a six-on-four power-play. But sophomore forward Sam Lipkin crushed their hopes, as he sunk a short-handed goal all the way from his own defensive zone into the empty net, bringing the score to its final form, 4-1 for the Bobcats.
This weekend marked the final non-conference series for Quinnipiac, as it heads into ECAC Hockey play next week.
“Those ECAC games are going to be a battle,” Moore said. “You know it’s going to be the first few tough meetings, so it’s really good to have this win rather than a loss going into those games.”
For their first conference game, Quinnipiac is set to play Dartmouth at its home ice in Hanover, New Hampshire. The puck is set to drop on Nov. 3 at 5 p.m.
“Every weekend is just a grind, every game, every period,” McGee said. “Everybody plays hard, for us it’s just about embracing that and battling every weekend.”
