Photo courtesy Quinnipiac Athletics
By: Sierra Goodwill
The 2016-2017 season started off in dramatic fashion Friday night, as the No. 2 Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team tied No. 15 Northeastern 2-2 in Hamden.
Bobcat fans poured out of the student section in the final minutes of the third period, confident that Bo Peiper’s goal with 6:23 to go in the third period to give Quinnipiac a 2-1 lead, guaranteed a victory.
But, they were wrong. Northeastern struck back and scored with 53 seconds left in the game to send it into overtime. Neither team was able to find the back of the net in the extra five minutes.
“It was an unusual game,” head coach Rand Pecknold said. “There are some good things for us to take out of it, and obviously some disappointing things to not hold the lead there at the end.”
Pecknold said that a lot of the positives from this game came from players being thrown into new positions.
“We had some guys in some new roles tonight and some really stepped up. I thought Chris Treuhl was really good, I thought our freshmen (defensemen) played well.”
Treuhl made his debut as a Bobcat Friday night as a junior. He transferred from Air Force to Quinnipiac after being the starting goaltender there for two seasons. Treuhl then had to redshirt last season. He notched 28 saves between the pipes in an impressive first-game performance.
“It was fun. It was a long time coming,” the goalie said. “The guys were great out there, they blocked a lot of shots for me. So, they help me I help them.”
With three solid goaltenders on the roster with Sean Lawrence, Andrew Shortridge and Truehl, there were questions surrounding who would get the start. After what Pecknold said was an “interesting” first month of the season where all the goalies played well, Truehl ultimately proved he was worth of the position.
“What separated Chris (Treuhl) is in practice he’s been the best on the penalty kill, just tracking down pucks,” Pecknold said. “He also has 51 starts at Air Force, he’s played college hockey before, so he has that advantage.”
Another player who was tested in an unfamiliar position was sophomore Luke Shiplo. He played on the third offensive line as a left wing, the first time in his hockey career, including before the collegiate level, he had not played defense.
“We have eight legit defenseman, so we are really deep back there,” Pecknold said. “We want Shiplo running the power play and we like those two freshmen (defensemen) in the line-up so we adapted, like we always do.”
Those two freshmen that Pecknold praised are Brogan Rafferty and Karlis Cukste, and they made up the second D-line.
But with the positives, come the negatives. Quinnipiac went 0-for-5 on the power play, something that needs rebuilding after the losses of Sam Anas, Travis St. Denis and Devon Toews, the leaders of last year’s unit.
“I thought it was sluggish,” Pecknold said. “I thought our guys panicked, our first unit panicked there a little bit and we lost battles. It’s a work in progress.”
There was also a severe momentum shift in the second period, stemmed from a lapse in focus by the Bobcats. The Huskies were able to send 17 shots on goal, after just four in the first period. This led to Lincoln Griffin’s power play goal that tied the game at one, just 1:39 into the second.
“We had a couple bad shifts which generated a lot of their offense,” Pecknold said. “Two really bad shifts that started with us panicking with the puck, we didn’t make good decisions.”
But, while his head coach wasn’t pleased about the shift in momentum, Truehl said it actually helped him get his head in the game.
“I don’t mind that. The guys played really well in the first period, I made a few saves and I kind of got into it. But, the 17 really got me dialed in for the rest of the game.”
Quinnipiac and Northeastern both get a chance for redemption and victory Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the High Point Solutions Arena.
Pieper has faith that the result will be different.
“Obviously the tie hurts now, but I think everyone is a good player, everyone’s been through this before and we are going to rally as a team and pull one out tomorrow.”
