HANOVER, N.H. — In 22 ECAC Hockey games last season, Quinnipiac never once went to overtime. In just one conference matchup this season, the Bobcats did just that, plus a shootout to earn a 2-2 tie at Dartmouth Friday.
Big Green freshman forward Nikita Nikora scored the lone goal in the shootout to give his squad the extra point.
It was the fifth time in eight regular season games this season that Quinnipiac required overtime. The game also marked the first matchup between the two teams since 2019 that hasn’t ended in a Bobcats regulation win.
“I give Dartmouth credit, they competed, they battled,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “We … just need to play better. We have some really good players that just aren’t playing well right now.”
As has been a theme of this young season, Quinnipiac was forced to juggle its lines yet again Friday. Senior forward Travis Treloar left the game late in the first period with an apparent lower-body injury and did not return for the remainder of the game.
Down to 11 forwards, the Bobcats threw out any number of different line combinations in the final two periods.
“(We’re) just trying to find any kind of combinations of kids,” Pecknold said. “We certainly had kids that were really good today, we just had five or six players that struggled. I’m being polite using the word ‘struggled.’”
But before his exit, Treloar left his mark. He and freshman forward Mason Marcellus played tic-tac-toe in transition, dragging the Dartmouth defense out of position to set up Treloar’s fifth goal of the season.
The Big Green struck back four minutes later. A defensive miscue and a neutral zone turnover allowed Dartmouth to break it two-on-one, setting up senior forward Joey Musa for a diving tip-in.
The Bobcats had several opportunities to retake the lead in the final six minutes — including an open net missed by junior forward Cristophe Tellier in the period’s dying seconds — but nothing found twine.
Tellier avenged his miss less than two minutes into the middle frame, putting home a loose rebound past Dartmouth sophomore goaltender Cooper Black.
But the Big Green answered late in the period, with sophomore forward Luke Haymes cleaning up a rebound to tie the game at two, where the score would stay through overtime.
That was not for a lack of chances, though. Dartmouth nearly put itself in the driver’s seat off of dominant zone possession in the third period. Quinnipiac’s poor breakout attempts created several net-front scrambles that senior goaltender Vinny Duplessis bailed it out of.
“I thought he was good,” Pecknold said. “He made some big saves. We kind of hung him out to dry on both goals.”
The Bobcats continue their opening ECAC weekend with a bout at Harvard Saturday. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.
