HAMDEN — “It’s ridiculous, it really is. I don’t wanna use the term embarrassing, ridiculous is the better word.”
Head coach Rand Pecknold put it best. There is no other way to summarize what happened at M&T Bank Arena Saturday afternoon.
The Bobcats were seven minutes and 40 seconds away from forcing game three in the ECAC Quarterfinals against Clarkson. After a poor showing last night, the Bobcats were back tonight with more passion and grit.
It wasn’t enough.
“I thought our passion was great tonight, but our details were poor,” Pecknold said. “We are an immature team, obviously we had a lot of success this year, but we have immature spurts, we gotta put them away.”
There are often jokes made about the curse of Lake Placid, N.Y., as no matter what, Quinnipiac just seems to be unable to win on the miracle ice.
This weekend, the curse extended to the quarterfinals.
“We basically had the game won,” Pecknold said. “We are a really good defensive hockey team, or have been in the past. We just made some immature decisions, lacked details and lacked buy-in.”
Out of the gate, Quinnipiac clearly had a chip on its shoulder after getting dominated across the board on Friday night. The Bobcats came out swinging, falling back to the familiar offense that is associated with this team, outshooting the Golden Knights 36 to 18 shots-on-goal.
Freshman center Markus Vidicek started off the night after finding a pass from fellow freshman forward Ethan Wyttenbach and finally bested Clarkson’s junior goaltender Shane Soderwall.
Even though Clarkson quickly answered to even out the night after freshman forward Justin Cote capitalized on one of many power play opportunities, Quinnipiac’s sophomore defenseman Braden Blace answered with back-to-back goals in one minute to give the Bobcats a comfortable two-goal lead heading into the final 15 minutes of play.
Maybe a little bit too comfortable, considering how it ended.
Eight minutes left in regulation. Yet another Quinnipiac power play. Junior forward Mason Marcellus caught a pass from freshman defender Graham Sward on the blue line. He starts skating forward, but the puck stays behind on the line.
Junior winger Shawn O’Donnell saw his opportunity, grabbed the puck and sniped it right above Quinnipiac’s junior goaltender Dylan Silverstein for a shorthanded goal.
Back to one goal difference. A little bit of a less comfortable position now for the Bobcats, but they still had the man advantage for over a minute and a half.
Thirty-eight seconds later, freshman defender Matthew Mayich shot one above Silverstein for a second shorthanded goal on the same power play.
“I don’t think that’s happened in 32 years,” Pecknold said. “You’d have to ask Dylan (what happened). I’m sure that’s one he wants back.”
Tied with seven minutes to go, both teams started fighting harder than before. Clarkson wanted that upset sweep, while Quinnipiac wanted that third game.
The tension was palpable on the ice, and the 19 combined penalties served as solid evidence, 11 of which were after some sort of roughing or hitting.
Unfortunately for the Bobcats, a minute and a half later, senior winger Erik Bargholtz sniped one past the defense and Silverstein for the game-winning goal.
Even Pecknold’s signature efforts of pulling Silverstein out of the net with three minutes to go did not help. Quinnipiac kept the puck out from multiple empty netter attempts, but every last minute hero shot was stopped or deflected.
And it was the Golden Knights who celebrated on Quinnipiac’s home ice and advanced to the ECAC Semifinals.
“Congrats to Clarkson, they played great both nights,” Pecknold said. “They battled, their goalie played well, they found a way to win on the road so I give them credit. Our buy-in has been sporadic, we had a really good run until the Cornell game and then we went off the rails a bit, the buy-in has not been good.”
So for the first time since 2019, Quinnipiac will not be amongst the final four in Lake Placid, N.Y. Its only silver lining is that the season is not over yet. The Bobcats will have to wait for Selection Sunday, March 22, to find out their fate in the NCAA Tournament.
How will they prepare for it following a loss like this?
“I have no clue,” Pecknold said. “I’ll have a clue eventually. Right now it’s just trying to process the craziest loss, one of the worst losses we’ve ever had. We’ll deal with that later. I assumed we were playing tomorrow.”
