HAMDEN — Five and a half minutes remain in the second frame. It’s 2-0 Northeastern.
Credit that to one of several defensive turnovers gone awry. Quinnipiac is playing scrappy. It’s hard to recognize new faces on the ice dawning numbers worn by forward Colin Graf ‘23 or defenseman Charles Alexis Legault.
Freshman left wing Joe Connor stops freshman center Noah Eyre from bringing the puck up the right wing and collides with senior center Ryan McGuire near center ice. Connor capitalizes, takes the puck and passes upwards to junior wing Cam Lund.
Shot blocked by Quinnipiac sophomore goaltender Matej Marinov.
The rebound isn’t so easy. The puck trickles off Marinov’s knee pads. Connor is waiting and fires from the left.
Marinov is out of position. The puck travels through sophomore defenseman Charlie Leddy, graduate student defenseman Cooper Moore and the diving netminder.
“I thought we honestly hung him out to dry,” head coach Rand Pecknold said regarding Marinov. “We need to play better in front of him.”
3-0 Huskies.
Thirty seconds pass.
Senior defenseman Davis Pennington has possession and sends a shot toward Northeastern sophomore goaltender Cameron Whitehead. It ricochets off of freshman center Chris Pelosi’s glove.
Goal. 3-1 Northeastern.
“He’s a big-time player, he’s one of the better freshmen in our league, we’re fortunate to have him, and I thought he was really good tonight,” Pecknold said.
Look to the other end of the ice at the faceoff and senior Noah Altman stands in net.
Junior defender Kyle Furey feeds the puck through Quinnipiac’s defensive zone and right to freshman forward Ethan Fredericks. He turns and meets Altman’s 6-foot-7 frame. Fredericks grabs the rebound and lightly crosses the puck to the right.
An unmarked freshman right wing James Fisher connects and easily nets Northeastern’s fourth of the night.
One minute later and the chaos continues. Under four minutes in the second.
A sequence begins. Freshman defenseman Brayden Blace hits a shot that stops at sophomore center Mason Marcellus’s body. Junior winger Anthony Cipollone maintains control for Quinnipiac and crosses to sophomore defenseman Nate Benoit.
The North Dakota transfer zings the puck to junior forward Alex Power, who misses a one-timer. The puck bounces out, Power uses his backhand as he collides with a Husky.
Whitehead isn’t in position.
Goal. 4-2.
For those few moments, both teams played chippy, complete hockey — trading goals for two minutes on Sunday night, as No. 20 Northeastern downed No. 7/8 Quinnipiac 4-2 in its sole exhibition matchup.
“It’s been a little bit of chaos for us the month of September with 14 new players, and I think we saw that tonight,” Pecknold said. “We had some serious breakdowns at times. But it’s, part of the process.”
The Bobcats are working with 15 forwards, and only seven of them are returners. They’re also introducing much of their roster to an unfamiliar playing style, and the adjustment isn’t linear.
“We’ve got so many kids that have habits from the teams they came from, and we play differently than pretty much every team they came from, so we have to kind of establish those habits and create them,” Pecknold said.
Quinnipiac has experienced the most roster turnover across the conference in the last three seasons, which is bound to be an Achilles heel as the season begins.
“It’s really difficult to run with 15 (forwards) and eight (defenders), but you do it, and we played all three goalies today, and you know, it’s certainly not something that I want to make a habit of,” Pecknold said.
Aside from a disappointing outing as a whole, there are several individual positives to take away.
Pelosi earning his first collegiate goal, freshman Dylan Silverstein getting time in net during the third period. And every now and again there was chemistry sprouting from Quinnipiac’s lines.
“There’s a lot of good things that happened, and that’s why you play exhibitions to get better,” Pecknold said.
It’s not Quinnipiac hockey’s standard, but it’s not the be all end all.
