Four second period goals were enough to spring the Quinnipiac University Bobcats to a 5-2 win over the St. Lawrence University Saints Saturday afternoon at the TD Bank Sports Center.
Quinnipiac scored three of their goals on the power play and killed off 11-of-12 penalties.
“We have a lot of work to do on our power play,” said St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh. “Give them a lot of credit; they did a great job on their special teams, certainly better than ours. When you don’t score on your power play, it will definitely give the other team a lot of life.”
The Bobcats’ Zach Hansen took a major penalty and game misconduct for hitting from behind, putting the Saints on the power play for five minutes just five minutes into the game. The Saints were unable to score for over four minutes of it, before taking a minor penalty of their own.
“That’s huge [killing off major penalty],” said Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold. “We could have gotten down early and by a lot. That was key, and our penalty kill the whole game was great.”
On the ensuing Quinnipiac power play opportunity, Brandon Wong tallied a power-play goal. On the attempted clear by the Saints (5-3-1, 1-1-0 ECAC Hockey), Greg Holt picked off the clear attempt at the blue line and sent a pass to the slot for Wong. Wong collected the puck on the backhand, made a move to his forehand, and beat St. Lawrence’s Robby Moss under the bar.
Quinnipiac (6-1-0, 2-0-0 ECAC Hockey) extended their lead to two goals when defenseman Zach Currie went coast-to-coast and scored on a backhanded shot over the blocker side of Moss 1:40 into the second period.
Midway through the second the Saints had a five-on-three power play for 1:41, but were unable to capitalize on their second two-man advantage of the game.
The Bobcats extended their lead again on the power play. This time it was Yuri Bouharevich with a rebound goal from outside the crease. Mike Dalhuisen took the initial shot from the point after a pass from Brett Dickinson. Bouharevich picked up the loose puck and put it home for the three-goal lead at 14:19.
Reese Rolheiser added to the Bobcats’ scoring run when he banged a one-timer shot off the crossbar from the right circle and in at 17:22.
One minute later, St. Lawrence scored on Mark Armstrong’s goal from the slot that beat Quinnipiac’s Dan Clarke over the shoulder on a pass from George Hughes.
“Clarke did a real good job in goal,” said Marsh. “We had some pretty good looks, but he had good positions and pucks hit him. He played really strong in goal for them. We just got beat.”
Eric Lampe registered the third Quinnipiac power-play goal with under thirty seconds remaining in the period. Wong received a pass from Holt at the point and fed Lampe the puck through a Saints’ defenseman’s legs. Lampe corralled the puck and took the puck to his forehand and beat a sprawling Moss for the goal.
Kain Tisi replaced Moss to start the third period for the Saints, giving up no goals on four shots.
With 3:11 left, St. Lawrence scored a power-play goal of their own by Brandon Bollig. Jeff Caister carried the puck into the offensive zone and ripped a shot on Clarke that he was unable to control. Bollig followed the play and put the rebound in.
“I don’t think we played a perfect game; we took too many penalties,” said Pecknold. “Our penalty kill was great and Clarke was good in net.”
Clarke made 27 saves in the win while Moss would make 13 in the loss. The Bobcats finished three-for-five on the power play while St. Lawrence went one-for-12.
“Give them credit,” said Marsh. “They are a solid team and he’s an excellent coach. They certainly were well prepared tonight.”
