Photo Courtesy: Quinnipiac Athletics
By Mark Spillane
Quinnipiac fired 31 shots on goal and got two goals from leading scorer Sam Anas, but it wasn’t enough for a victory as the No. 18 Bobcats and No. 16 Yale Bulldogs skated to a 2-2 tie on Saturday night in New Haven.
The teams skated to the tie in front of a sold out crowd at Ingalls Rink, which witnessed a combined 58 saves between Michael Garteig and Alex Lyon.
Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold praised both goaltenders after each made 29 stops.
“I thought both goalies were great, I thought it was a great exhibition of goaltending tonight by both kids,” Pecknold said with a smile. “I thought both teams missed a couple half empty nets and that stuff, but that’s part of hockey.”
Yale head coach Keith Allain was very blunt when he was asked if he was disappointed that his team missed some of those opportunities.
“Absolutely,” he said. “We came into this game expecting to win, and I thought we had opportunities to get the winning goal, and we didn’t score… I am disappointed with the result.”
Pecknold appeared a bit more cheerful saying “I thought that was a great college hockey game, and I thought the pace was awesome.”
He also joked about the short commute to Yale compared to a typical road game, and called the ability to come away with a tie a great learning experience for his players.
Anas was the first one to break through the solid goaltending with an impressive backhand effort ten minutes into the first period.
“I thought the defense would slide like that so I knew I had to pull the puck back,” he said. “Then I kind of lost it and drifted to the corner and I figured I would just throw it toward the net, and I think it bounced off of Lyon and in luckily, but I’ll take it.”
But the Bulldogs evened the score at one 9:43 into the second period when the Bobcats lost track of Carson Cooper in front, who buried an opportunity set up by Frankie DiChiara.
“I recently got Frank DiChiara on my line, and we’ve got some chemistry going these last few games, so I think we are just excited to get out there and play together,” Cooper said.
Quinnipiac broke through once more with 14:27 to play in the third period to take a 2-1 lead when Anas again found the back of the net on a one-timer from between the circles set up by Matthew Peca and Travis St. Denis.
“That was a good relief to get that one. We had drawn that play up so it’s always nice when you execute on a play that you had just drawn up,” Anas said.
He also praised Landon Smith for screening Lyon in front of the net, and as for the flashy celebration, his explanation was simple.
“I was pretty tired at the moment, and knowing that was the end of the shift, and being able to get up two-to-one after not having a good first two periods as a team… it was pretty much a sigh of relief.”
The lead did not last long as Ryan Obuchowski scored three and a half minutes later on a slap shot from the point to tie it at two.
Despite the two goals and an abundant number of shots against, Pecknold praised his defense considering the absence of Devon Toews for an injury and Connor Clifton for a suspension.
ECAC Hockey suspended Clifton one game for slew-footing a Brown player on Friday night.
“I thought the biggest adversity we faced was that I let my players know at like 2:30 (p.m.) that we had to refocus, we don’t have an elite player like Connor Clifton playing tonight,” Pecknold said. “I thought our d-core was really good… we had to juggle matchups and who played with who, but I thought the defense was really good.”
The Bobcats dominated puck possession in the overtime period, but could not break through as the game ended in a 2-2 tie.
Quinnipiac moved to 16-8-2 overall and tallied its ECAC leading 23rd point, while Yale moved to 12-6-3 overall, and picked up its 16th conference point, good for a fourth place tie with Clarkson.
The Bobcats will travel to face the Cornell Big Red and Colgate Raiders next weekend while the Bulldogs will host the Harvard Crimson and Dartmouth Big Green.
