“We’re devastated.”
Look back at the last nine years of Quinnipiac men’s hockey and this quote from head coach Rand Pecknold could be from any one of its gut-wrenching losses in the ECAC Tournament.
Because the fact is, despite all the success, despite a national championship and countless NCAA Tournament wins — Pecknold hasn’t been able to conquer Lake Placid, New York. At least not for the last nine years.
The last time Quinnipiac came away with the Whitelaw Cup was in 2016, and since then they’ve fallen short each time.
But oftentimes in sports certain things happen when you least expect it. It would almost make perfect sense that this team, the one that added 15 new players and started the year a dreadful 3-5 would be the one to do it.
Now, this group of Bobcats going up to Lake Placid and winning two games wouldn’t be a miracle — not by a long shot. For all intents and purposes this team should and is expected to go into Herb Brooks Arena and win the Whitelaw. But in recent memory there has always been that “Lake Placid thing” with Pecknold’s teams sitting in the back of their heads. No matter how much NHL talent is on the roster, Placid is the great equalizer.
However, this team’s greatest weakness can become its greatest strength. With such a high roster turnover since 2023, there is only one player who has suited up in more than one game in Lake Placid — junior forward Victor Czerneckianair.
“We’re not having the chat this year about the Lake Placid thing,” senior goaltender Noah Altman said Feb. 22. “Like, there’s no reason to chat about it. We’re an entirely new team.”
So, while immaturity and an overall shaky growth process has plagued the Bobcats at certain stretches this season, it has put them in a position that may actually help them this weekend. Quinnipiac desperately needs to win the Whitelaw — or at the very least appear in the championship game — in order to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
“Our backs are against the wall here,” graduate student defenseman Cooper Moore said March 14. “We know that it’s do or die right now, and we’ve been working all year to get to this point, and we’re feeling really good about our game right now, and we’re just really excited to keep rolling.”
This hasn’t always been the case in years past, with a majority of Pecknold’s teams already securing an at-large bid by the time the conference tournament rolls around, including the 2023 National Champions, who fell in the ECAC Championship game. In simpler terms, Lake Placid wasn’t the end of the road, it was just a pit stop in the pursuit of a larger goal.
Because of that, Quinnipiac’s mindset should be different, it should be sharper and more intense than in years past.
And after Quinnipiac’s sweep of Brown in the ECAC Quarterfinals last weekend, it’s clear the pieces of the puzzle are there, it just has to put them together at the right time.
The biggest piece of that puzzle will be Matej Marinov. The sophomore goaltender had his best weekend of his career in his postseason debut. Marinov stopped 54 out of the 55 shots sent his way, with the only goal coming off a 6-4 chance by the Bears.
“Matej was great,” associate head coach Joe Dumais said following Quinnipiac’s 4-0 win on March 15. He kept us in that game early, and then we found a way to score.”
After splitting goaltending duties for much of the season with sophomore Dylan Silverstein, there was a question mark about who would get the net come playoff time. Marinov ended that conversation last weekend.
“As a goalie that’s what you want, we all want the pressure,” Marinov said. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Having a hot goaltender will certainly help carry Quinnipiac into next weekend —Marinov hasn’t lost since Nov. 9 — but the Bobcats are also going to need guys to create some chances on the other end, and it seems to have a young group ready to cash in.
In their playoff debuts, freshmen, forward Tyler Borgula and defensemen Elliott Groenewold, racked up the points; with Borgula potting two goals in Saturday’s 4-0 win and Groenewold finishing the weekend with three points.
“If you look at Elliot Groenewold tonight, he was spectacular,” Dumais said. “He played a ton of minutes. He was playing against (Brown’s) top line all night long. Tyler Borgula had two goals for us, he’s a freshman, this is his first playoff series. So we had a lot of guys step it up.”
Borgula also helped fuel the nation’s No. 1 power play, drawing a pair of penalties in Saturday’s win. If the Bobcats want to escape Lake Placid with the Whitelaw, they’ll need to lean into their strength in the power play. Though scoring may be tough to come by as a potential matchup with Clarkson — who ranks No. 6 in the nation on the kill — looms.
“We have very talented power plays,” Borgula said. “So to get us out there is very special, and it’s fun to watch because there’s so much skill. And I think just drawing penalties gets the guys going.”
But at this point in the nine-year drought, it probably doesn’t matter as much about the opponent as it does about just finally slaying this Lake Placid narrative that looms over this team each spring. Yes, Clarkson and Cornell will be extremely tough opponents to out, but the ghosts of Placid have proved to be a tougher opponent than any ECAC team of years past.
Maybe the final buzzer sounds and this group of Bobcats become just another ghost in the halls of Herb Brooks Arena.
Or, maybe, this year, Pecknold has the right group, facing the right circumstances, at the right time, and everything comes together. Maybe by Saturday night, Quinnipiac is hosting that Whitelaw Cup that has evaded some of the best teams in program history.
Maybe, for reasons outside anyone’s understanding, this is the team that does it. After all, there just seems to be something in that building that leads to teams winning when you least expect it.
Quinnipiac will begin to put together the puzzle Friday, March 21, in the ECAC Semifinals against Cornell. Puck drop is set for 4 p.m. in Lake Placid.
