NEW HAVEN — It was the words “Yale Wins” that danced on the videoboard in Ingalls Rink above Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey’s heads Friday night. The Bobcats fell 4-2 to the Bulldogs in their ECAC opener— their first loss to Yale since 2018.

On paper, Quinnipiac should’ve won. The Bobcats are the No. 5 team in the nation, Yale hasn’t been nationally ranked since 2011. They haven’t lost to the Bulldogs in 2,826 days on a 17 game win streak in the Battle of Whitney Avenue. Quinnipiac was 5-2-2 on the season, while this was Yale’s third game.

Even in this Friday night’s game, the Bobcats outshot the Bulldogs 63 to 38, with 27 shots-on-goal to Yale’s 23. Six powerplays. Thirty-seven faceoffs won to Yale’s 19. The numbers are clearly pointing in Quinnipiac’s favor. 

But at the end of the day, those numbers mean nothing. Hockey is an unpredictable game, and Yale showed Quinnipiac just how unpredictable it can be. 

“We struggled,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “It’s a struggle right now, it’s a battle. We got kids with no confidence, no buy-in.”

However, Quinnipiac came out of the gate swinging when freshman winger Ethan Wyttenbach grabbed the puck off of a turnover and found his linemate, freshman forward Antonin Verreault, in front of Yale’s net for the first goal of the night, a little over two minutes into the game. 

Eight minutes later, senior defender Charlie Leddy’s one-timer, and first goal of the season, put the Bobcats into a two-nothing lead. 

A comfortable start, one might say. Maybe a little too comfortable, as the game didn’t stay unanswered for long, and the Bobcats would not find the back of the net again. 

Three minutes later, Yale’s junior winger David Andreychuk caught a pass and shot from the far circle, sliding the puck right in between junior goaltender Dylan Silverstein’s pads, putting the Bulldogs up on the board. 

It must’ve lit a fire under Quinnipiac as it posed 10 shots straight after, none of which came even close to crossing that red goal line, with Yale’s sophomore netminder Noah Pak posting 25 saves on the night with a .926 save percentage. 

“Pak was the best player on the ice tonight, he was outstanding,” Pecknold said. “I thought Yale played great.”

Which definitely served as a great help for the Bulldogs. On the other side of the ice, Silverstein recorded 19 saves with a .826 save percentage, his third worst in his collegiate career. 

Whether it was the energy from the alumni crowd or just a point to be proven, Yale had it out for Quinnipiac tonight. The Bulldogs’ physical game would result in six power plays for the Bobcats, which would ultimately remain unsuccessful. On the other hand, and a positive note, Yale did not score on its two power play opportunities either.

A bit of a backwards statistic for a team like Quinnipiac that is No. 19 in the nation on power play percentage but No. 35 in penalty killing percentage. 

“We gotta play to our identity, obviously we didn’t do that tonight but it’s a work in progress,” Pecknold said. “We’re immature as a team right now but we will figure it out.” 

For two times tonight, there were instances where the game would go without stoppage for over five minutes, with a lot of scoring opportunities for the Bobcats. 

“When there’s no whistles, you gotta play four lines so that’s what we did,” Pecknold said. “We have good depth, but a lot of the guys struggled. They struggled in the first and they couldn’t reset. That’s a staple at Quinnipiac, we’re always good at resetting so we don’t waste a game, but we got some guys that struggled. We’ll get better.”

Fourteen minutes into the second period, sophomore defenseman Elliott Groenewold heads to the box for interference. Six seconds later, Andreychuk joins him for hooking. 

Four-on-four play. Yale’s senior center Elan Bar-Lewise shoots the puck from behind his net all the way to Quinnipiac’s blue line, where freshman center James Shannon is waiting for it.

The former Quinnipiac commit snipes a shot to the top left past Silverstein and ties the game with his first collegiate career goal, 16 minutes into the second. 

“He’s a great kid, I thought he was one of the best players,” Pecknold said. “He’s playing hard, I wish it wasn’t against us, but he’s a really good kid.”

For the next 20 minutes of play, the Bobcats would try and shoot and try again, but every single one of their attempts was denied. Even with the six penalty minutes Yale amassed just this period, every Quinnipiac shot was either blocked or just wide. 

You don’t score, you get scored on, or however that saying goes. Yale took that literally. 

With less than four minutes left in regulation, senior center David Chen’s backhander finds the back of the net as Silverstein looks to the other side expecting the puck behind the net not in it.

Last time Yale scored three goals on Quinnipiac was on Feb. 9, 2018, coincidentally also the last game the Bulldogs won over the Bobcats. 

And they weren’t done breaking the streaks tonight. With a wide open net after Pecknold pulled Silverstein out with 2:40 to go in regulation, sophomore winger Ronan O’Donnell drove the puck in 17 seconds before the final buzzer. 

The last time Yale scored four goals on Quinnipiac was during the 2013 NCAA Championship game, when the Bulldogs shut out the Bobcats for the national title. 

And so the Bulldogs took the win and the bragging rights for the foreseeable future. 

You can’t change the outcome of a game. Delving on it is not going to help anything. The only thing Quinnipiac can do now is take this loss and learn from it going forward. After all, there’s still at least 26 more games in the season. And Pecknold has a clear outlook for the future games.

“We’re gonna play better.”

Quinnipiac will travel to Providence, Rhode Island, to face the Brown Bears on Saturday. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m.