The Quinnipiac University Bobcats men’s ice hockey team (20-8-2, 15-2-1 ECAC) will host the Yale University Bulldogs (15-7-3, 10-6-2 ECAC) on Friday night and the Brown University Bears (7-17-1, 4-13-1 ECAC) on Saturday in the final two regular season home games this year.
The Bobcats and Bulldogs will face off for the 13th annual Heroes Hat. With a win the Bobcats would also clinch the Cleary Cup for the second time in the past three seasons with a win over the Bulldogs.
The Bobcats have won five of their last six games, with the only one of those six games not resulting in a victory was a 2-2 tie away against the Bulldogs at Ingalls Rink. Last weekend Quinnipiac was able to complete the weekend sweep of fellow ECAC foes St. Lawrence by a score of 2-1 and Clarkson by a final of 4-1. It was the first time the Bobcats swept a weekend series at home since early November.
Senior co-captain Matthew Peca has picked up an assist in four of the last five games as well, bringing his season total to 25 to lead the team. Freshman Landon Smith has picked up a goal in each of the Bobcats’ last three games, giving him 14 so far in a very successful freshman season.
The Bulldogs come in to this matchup with the Bobcats riding a two game winning streak of their own. Yale swept their weekend road trip last weekend defeating Union 2-0 and RPI 4-1. The Bulldogs have been led by goaltender Alex Lyon who has an impressive 1.59 goals against average this season. The Bulldogs have become a much more defensive minded team than in past years, with no players yet to eclipse 20 points on the season. Mike Doherty leads the Bulldogs with 18 points on the year, after picking up two goals and an assist last weekend, bringing his season totals to 11 goals and seven assists. Right behind Doherty is John Hayden with 17 points.
On Saturday Quinnipiac will honor grad student Justin Agosta, and seniors Alex Barron, Danny Federico, and Matthew Peca for their careers as Bobcats.
Brown sits in second to last place in the conference with just four conference wins on the season, with Princeton as the only team behind them.
Although Brown has struggled throughout the course of the season, they seem to be playing their best hockey right now winning three straight, looking to play the role of spoiler down the stretch of conference play in the ECAC. Brown also swept last weekend, winning at RPI 6-3 on Friday, and at Union 1-0 on Saturday. The Bears have a chance to increase their winning streak to four games when they travel to Princeton to play the Tigers on Friday night before playing the Bobcats on Saturday.
The Bears are led in scoring by Mark Naclerio, who is tied for the team lead with eight goals to go with his nine assists totaling a team high 17 points. Naclerio tallied three of his goals against the Bobcats back on Jan. 30. Right behind Naclerio is Matt Lorito with eight goals and eight assists for 16 points.
The weekend will begin for the Bobcats at 7 p.m. at the High Point Solutions Arena when the puck drops against the Bulldogs.
Quinnipiac will finish its regular season next weekend when the team travels to play at Harvard on Feb. 27 and at Dartmouth on Feb. 28.
