By Rob Ciambra, QBSN Staff Writer 

It may have been dark and rainy on Sunday in Hamden, but inside the High Point Solutions Arena, the Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team was shining bright. In the first game of the 2013-14 campaign, an exhibition against the St. Mary’s University Huskies, the Bobcats hit the ground running the second the puck dropped and defeated the Huskies 7-2.

What seemed to be a mostly physical affair through the first half of the opening period, the scoring chances started coming more and more to both teams later on. It was freshman Peter Quenneville (Edmonton, Alberta) who set himself up in front of the Huskies’ netminder Anthony Peters. Senior Jordan Samuels-Thomas (West Hartford, Conn.) streaked into the zone after receiving a pass from senior Zach Tolkinen (Lino Lakes, Minn.), deked Peters out of position and tried to put the puck in himself on a wrap-around.

The puck was blocked and came out to Quenneville, who in almost one fluid motion, received the rebound and shot a hard wrist shot into the net to put the Bobcats ahead of the Huskies 1-0. Sophomore Matt Lemire (Townsend, Mass.) scored about a minute later on a wrist shot that sneaked through the pads of Peters to put the Bobcats ahead 2-0 going into the intermission.

Samuels-Thomas scored 41 seconds into the second period on a power play that carried over from the end of the first period. Steve Shipley of St. Mary’s was ejected from the game after a hit from behind, giving the Bobcats a five minute power play. Samuels-Thomas and fellow senior Connor Jones (Montrose, British Columbia) scored on the five minute power play. Jones added his second goal of the game a short while later shorthanded to put the Bobcats up 6-0.

Sophomore Michael Garteig (Prince George, British Columbia) was relieved in net midway through the second period, stopping all eight shots he faced. He was replaced by freshman Brady Rouleau (Lethridge, Alberta) who finished the game in net. The Huskies did not want to go without a fight though, as Steven Beyers scored with a minute remaining in the second period.

In the third period, freshman Connor Clifton (Matawan, N.J.) scored on the power play for the Bobcats. Michael Stickland added one more for the Huskies before time expired in the game, but it was not enough.

Twelve different Bobcats registered at least one point in the game.

“It was nice to get out there and compete again,” senior Connor Jones said after the game.

Head coach Rand Pecknold spoke about the game in relation to the upcoming week.

“[Michael] Garteig was really good tonight … we needed to get him some confidence,” Pecknold said. “We need to get better with details … it’s typical with 10 freshmen. It’s probably the biggest thing to get us ready for Friday night in Anchorage.”

The Bobcats travel to Alaska on Friday, Oct. 11 to play in the Kendall Hockey Classic, which kicks off the regular season for them. The Huskies, now 0-4-1 in the preseason, play their final exhibition game on Oct. 11 at St. Francis-Xavier.