HAMDEN, Conn. — The No. 1 team in the nation is not afraid of late-game heroics.
Top-ranked Quinnipiac tied Thursday night’s game against conference foe Rensselaer on a goal with nine seconds left to play in the game.
Quinnipiac rushed to crowd in and put players low in Jason Kasdorf’s crease. With seconds left, Sam Anas gave a final stab at the puck for the Bobcats, giving enough to roll and ultimately go in off of Lou Nanne’s stick into the Engineers net.
For Anas, all that mattered was the puck crossing the red line before time ran out.
“It was just chaos in front of the net,” Anas said. “I saw the puck there and just gave it a whack on my backhand and hoped for the best. I saw the ref point and I figured it was in, so I was pretty excited.”
It was the second game in a row for both teams to end in a tie.
“It’s a process on how we play,” RPI coach Seth Appert said. “We’re not happy with the result, we came here to win. We’ve got a really good hockey team, we didn’t come here to tie or lose and play well. We came here to win.”
After a strong first period by Quinnipiac (19-1-5, 10-3-0 ECAC), RPI (12-7-6, 5-1-5 ECAC) broke open the scoring with five minutes left in the second period off the stick of Zach Schroeder for his 50th career point. Working the perimeter, he cut through with traffic in front of Hobey Baker candidate Michael Garteig.
Even after a review, Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold was still dissatisfied in the first tally by RPI.
“Unfortunately on their first goal, I think it was offsides,” Pecknold said. “It’s not a TV game, so we don’t have review for that. If it’s a TV game, they can review it and they might have called that one back.”
The Engineers put their second on the board five minutes into the third from Mark Miller, which was reviewed after he bumped the puck off of his chest and past a sliding Garteig’s blocker side.
Just 30 seconds later, the Bobcats responded with a goal of their own from captain Soren Jonzzon, who snapped a seven-game goal drought dating back to Dec. 5 against Brown.
Quinnipiac’s two goals weren’t from a lack of trying. The Bobcats attempted 102 shots, 48 on net. The Bobcats hit the post four times and had 29 shots blocked by the Engineer defense.
“We just have a team that’s willing to do things for each other because they love each other and they want to win and do things the right way and try to leave a legacy at our program,” Appert said. “The blocked shots tonight were normal. That’s expected.”
Four of the six defensemen for RPI were underclassmen, including freshman Tommy Grant, who has quickly risen to become a key player for his team.
“We’ve had so many injuries this year, that doesn’t even faze our guys,” Appert said. “We don’t even address it, it’s just the next man up. It’s not that we need Tommy and some of these other guys to replace Parker [Reno]’s style of play, they just have to eat his minutes in their own way.”
No update was given on Reno or Riley Bourbonnais’ status or timetable to return.
With the tie, Quinnipiac and Rensselaer remain the top two teams in the ECAC, with the gap between the Engineers and No. 6 Dartmouth only six points.
