HAMDEN — After narrowly skating to a one-goal victory in a game it dominated Friday, Quinnipiac men’s hockey cashed in on more chances Saturday to the tune of a 5-1 pummeling of Dartmouth.
The Bobcats’ 44 shots overwhelmed Big Green sophomore goaltender Cooper Black, who tied a season-high five goals in the game.
“It’s just analytics,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “Eventually you’re going to score … I thought we could have had more. I thought we missed some good chances. We had a couple good chances that kids were diving (in front of), blocking shots.”
While down 3-1 to UConn last weekend, Pecknold broke up the Bobcats’ top line of sophomore Sam Lipkin and juniors Jacob Quillan and Collin Graf. The latter moved to the right wing of senior Travis Treloar and junior Cristophe Tellier filled in Graf’s wing alongside Lipkin and Quillan.
Those combinations clicked on Saturday, as Graf, Quillan, Treloar, Lipkin and freshman Mason Marcellus all ended with multi-point nights.
“(It’s) very easy to play with those guys,” Treloar said of Graf and Marcellus. “I think we’re doing well reading off each other and creating chances.”
Graf put the Bobcats on the board less than five minutes into the game, but it was the setup that wowed the 3,200 fans in attendance.
Marcellus tripped while breaking into the zone down the left wall, somehow keeping possession of the puck and feeding Graf while rolling onto his back.
“He’s a big time player,” Pecknold said. “He’s improved a lot since September. I like his compete and his work ethic and he’s rounding out his game a little bit. He’s going to take another jump next year too.”
Graf’s strike was his first in five games, signaling the end of the least productive offensive stretch in his two years at Quinnipiac.
“It was a bit of a mental battle,” Graf said. “I feel like I was doing some good things the past five games, especially that weekend at Cornell and Colgate was tough. This past week at Connecticut Ice, I played better … lines were clicking, power play was good, so I think that helped a lot.
Marcellus found the back of the net himself less than two minutes later after the first goal, redirecting a pass from junior defenseman Davis Pennington past Black to extend the lead.
Lipkin chipped in another midway through the first period to give the hosts a three-goal advantage heading into the locker room.
Treloar added his seventh of the season in the second period, a tic-tac-toe passing play ending with a back-door tap-in for the Swede. He’s now on a four-game point streak, settling back into a groove after a November injury kept him off the ice for nearly two months.
“I think the culture (was) kind of built into me early on in the season,” Treloar said. “Obviously I was out for a couple months with an injury, but (I’m) getting up to speed again and glad I can get on the board and help the team.”
On the power play down 4-0 with just under 11 minutes to play. Dartmouth head coach Reid Cashman, a former coach and player at Quinnipiac, took a page out of his mentor Pecknold’s playbook and brought Black to the bench for a 6-on-4 advantage.
His gamble worked. Sophomore forward Luke Haymes tipped home a point shot to bring the deficit to three.
But the Big Green were unable to convert in the minutes that followed the power play and a costly five-minute major by junior forward Braiden Dorfman led to a goal from Quillan to bring the Bobcats’ advantage back to four.
His goal was one of three consecutive tallies for Quinnipiac on the power play, a banner night for a man-advantage that has sat comfortably in the middle of the national rankings all season.
“If you’re going to run a 1-3-1, you’ve got to have a good bumper, otherwise don’t run it,” Pecknold said. “It’s hard if they’re moving and they’re finding space, (Treloar) did a great job tonight with that.”
The game sputtered to an uneventful end after Quillan’s tally. Quinnipiac picks up the weekend sweep to maintain an 11-point gap over Cornell atop ECAC Hockey, inching ever-closer to its fourth-straight Cleary Cup as league regular season champion.
The Bobcats now prepare for their longest road trip of the season, heading to northern New York next weekend for bouts with St. Lawrence and Clarkson. Puck drop for both games is set for 7 p.m.
