Quinnipiac dominates St. Lawrence, takes over No. 1 seed in ECAC Hockey
February 23, 2019
There is only so much you can take away from a blowout win over the last ranked team in a conference. Yet for the Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team, Friday nights 7-2 win over St. Lawrence proved to have some interesting results beyond just the final score.
To preface: Yes, Quinnipiac was dominant all game and clearly out of St. Lawrence’s league skill-wise. Nonetheless there were some serious points of emphasis in the win.
Take these with a grain of salt, if you must, given the opponent. But here are three important takeaways from the game.
1) Quinnipiac’s power play has recovered from the loss of Fortunato
When senior Brandon Fortunato suffered a leg injury two weeks ago that would render him out for the remainer of the season, questions arose of who was going to step up in his place. Particularly on the teams first power play unit, which was operating at a red hot pace.
Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold has said on many occasions that he thinks of Fortunato as one of the top 10 players in the nation this season. Certainly someone hard, or even impossible, to replace.
But in his absence, Ethan de Jong has stepped in. The freshman got bumped up from the second power play unit, and is now working with the top unit of Chase Priskie, Wyatt Bongiovanni, Odeen Tufto and Brogan Rafferty.
After losing Fortunato, the team went cold on the man-advantage. The Bobcats were 2-12 across four games coming into Friday’s contest.
But that all changed against the Saints.
“We were clicking tonight, there was a lot of communication,” Priskie said. “We work on it in practice all the time, but it’s a performance-based business. We came out and did what we needed to do.”
Quinnipiac went 4-for-5 on the power play, including its first three goals coming on the man-advantage.
Yet Pecknold didn’t see this as unexpected. He knew it was coming, it was just a matter of when.
“I don’t think (the power play) has been struggling, I think it’s been good,” he said. “It’s not always about how many goals you score, if you create good chances eventually they are going to go in. If you get enough Grade-A (opportunities) the goals are going to come, and they came tonight.”
Granted, Quinnipiac came into the game with ECAC Hockey’s second best power play conversion percentage (27.3%) while St. Lawrence is in the bottom half of the league in PK percentage (77%). If nothing else, Quinnipiac has found power play confidence once again, something it will need the rest of the season.
2) Bongiovanni has a serious case for conference rookie of the year
Aside from being on a top team in the conference and adapting to the college game well, Quinnipiac’s Wyatt Bongiovanni has a shot at earning conference rookie of the year honors.
His efforts this season were showcased by a natural hat trick Friday against St. Lawrence, two of the goals coming on the aforementioned power play.
Bongiovanni leads the conference in goals from a freshman (14) and his 22 points rank him fourth in ECAC Hockey. He already has two conference player of the week honors, and given his performance on Friday is on pace for a conference leading third selection of the season.
Yet Bongiovanni is focused on tasks much larger than an individual award.
“I don’t like to focus on it too much, he said. “My focus right now is getting to the Frozen Four.”
3) Quinnipiac is back atop the ECAC Hockey standings…for now
Sitting one point behind the conference leading Cornell Big Red coming into the night, Quinnipiac needed the league leaders to falter if it wanted to take control of the table.
And that it did.
Cornell fell at home to Rensselaer in overtime, losing its grip on the ECAC Hockey No. 1 seed.
As the media was waiting for Quinnipiac players in the pressroom after the win, a cheerful roar could be heard bellowing out of the teams weight room. It was because RPI scored in OT for the win, propelling Quinnipiac to the top of the standings. The Bobcats now control their own destiny.
The stint at the top could be short lived, as Quinnipiac welcomes No. 12 Clarkson to Hamden tomorrow night. It’s been well documented how the Bobcats have struggled on Saturday night’s this season.
But there should be no reason not to get up for Clarkson.
““It’s a completely different animal,” Pecknold said. “Clarkson is a really good team. We battled with them a couple weeks ago. Everything is going to be really hard, and we need to be prepared for that and play with a lot of emotion.”
“Clarkson is going to be a war,” Bongiovanni said. “I think that we will carry some momentum in, but we will need some more too.”
Cornell now sits one point behind Quinnipiac in the ECAC Hockey standings, and will host Union tomorrow. The Big Red already beat the Dutchmen once this season, 4-0 on the road.
