The No. 7 nationally-ranked Quinnipiac Bobcats saw their run for it’s first ECAC Championship since 2007 came to an end on Friday night, falling to No. 17 Harvard Crimson 5-2 at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Head coach Rand Pecknold’s teams have won the regular season title in two of the last three seasons, but they have failed when it mattered the most, losing in three straight ECAC semifinals matches.
“I would argue that the regular season championships are harder to win than the postseason championships,” said Pecknold. “In the end we really wanted to win playoff championships, but we just didn’t get it done.”
Harvard got on the board first just thirty seconds into the game as Jimmy Vesey circled around the backside of the net and he got the puck off a centering feed and banked his shot off a Quinnipiac defender and past Michael Garteig to give the Crimson the early lead.
Harvard continued it’s dominant first period, scoring two more goals 33 seconds apart off the sticks of Colin Blackwell and Tyler Moy to take a 3-0 lead heading into the second period.
This forced Pecknold to take Garteig out of the game in favor of Sean Lawrence who gave up no more damage in his time in net. Garteig would return to his spot at the start of the second period.
Harvard head coach Ted Donato liked how his team was able to get off to a strong start against Quinnipiac.
“Obviously we like the start that we got off to. I liked how we skated and were able to put so many pucks on net,” said Donato.
As for the Bobcats, it was a tail of two halves for them with the poor first period performance and the much better second period performance.
Quinnipiac began taking more shots on net, but even though none were following, they were still pushing Harvard back.
The Bobcats finally got on the board 9:05 into the second period in the middle of a Harvard powerplay. The Crimson committed a turnover in their zone and Justin Agosta passed to Alex Barron, who then left the puck for Travis St. Denis who took two shots, and on the second one he slid the puck past Harvard goaltender, Steve Michalek.
Minutes later, Soren Jonzzon nailed a long slap shot past Michalek to bring the Bobcats within one.
In a defensive-minded game the rest of the way, Harvard remained on top 3-2 with just under two minutes left. Pecknold signaled Garteig out of the net after a stoppage of play, but this time it didn’t play in Quinnipiac’s favor. The Crimson scored not one, but two empty net goals by Sean Malone and Vesey to ultimately win the game 5-2.
Harvard will face off against Colgate in the ECAC Championship game on Saturday night at 7:37 p.m.
As for Quinnipiac, they will need to play the waiting game until Sunday to see if they remain within the top 16 of the Parawise Rankings in order to clinch a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
