By Andrew Badillo
There are no more perfect teams in college hockey after No. 3 Quinnipiac tied No. 20 Clarkson, 1-1 Friday night at High Point Solutions Arena. The Bobcats (11-0-1, 4-0-1 ECAC) were stymied all night by the Golden Knights’ (5-3-2, 0-2-2 ECAC) defense.
“They were blocking shots all over the place, it was tough to get them through. They had a hard fore check as well,” Quinnipiac defenseman Luke Shiplo said.
All season the Bobcats have dominated puck possession, which has resulted in a high volume of shots and power plays. Clarkson took all of this away from Quinnipiac Friday night. The Golden Knights used a mixture of sound defense and physicality to knock the Bobcats off their game.
“I give Clarkson a lot of credit, I thought they had a good game plan, they competed,” Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold said postgame. “I think Clarkson did a great job of creating our selfishness.”
That selfishness Pecknold referenced was the nine penalties Quinnipiac took, some came after whistles. Soren Jonzzon and Travis St. Denis in particular both took bad penalties after plays had concluded.
“They [Clarkson] were clutching and grabbing and banging and whacking and our guys got frustrated and we can’t do that,” Pecknold said.
Nic Pierog put Clarkson up 1-0 towards the end of the first period. The Golden Knights were able to sustain pressure on Michael Garteig and the defense all game after winning 32-59 faceoffs.
“We were brutal on face-offs tonight, I don’t know what our numbers were. But we were getting, in our opinion, torn apart on that and that’s just unacceptable, because of that we lost a lot of possession,” Jonzzon said postgame.
Quinnipiac was finally able to tie the game five minutes into the third period on a Luke Shiplo goal, his second of the season.
“It was a nice pass by Macker [Tanner MacMaster]. I just tried to get it by the first guy, because they were coming in and blocking a lot of pucks, I didn’t really aim for any spots,” Shiplo said.
Clarkson blocked 21 shots and when it wasn’t blocking shots it was glued to every Quinnipiac player in the offensive zone. The Bobcats have one of the most lethal offenses in the country averaging 4.64 goals per game.
Clarkson head coach Casey Jones came out with a game plan Friday to try and slow down the juggernaut that is Quinnipiac’s offense. For the first time this year it was able to slow down a Quinnipiac team that has steamrolled through its first 11 games.
Rand Pecknold and his team have a quick turn around as Quinnipiac takes on No. 14 St. Lawrence Saturday night.
Extras:
Thomas Aldworth:
The freshman has disappeared after his auspicious start to the season. After back-to-back three point games earlier in the season, Aldworth has tallied one point in his last eight games.
Michael Garteig:
The one positive for the Bobcats Friday night was goaltender Michael Garteig’s 25 save performance. The senior has taken his game to a new level this season. He is sixth in the nation with a 1.53 goals against average and has a .934 save percentage.
Penalties:
Five penalties including a ten-minute misconduct penalty issued to Travis St. Denis is terrible. The Bobcats gave into the Golden Knights’ chippy game plan and it resulted in five power plays for the green and gold.
